0ELAVAN L. PIERSON, 
 ©44 Maroy Aye. 
 BROOKLYN, - y # 
 
 
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Mrs. Betsey Holton Moody. 
 
Betag Bolfort J&noby. 
 
 “And so the word had breath and wrought 
 With human hands the creed of creeds 
 In loveliness of perfect deeds 
 More strongthan any poet’s thought.” 
 
 The subject of this sketch, who, in the later years of 
 her hale old age, was known far and near by the affec¬ 
 tionate title of “Grandma Moody,” was born in the town¬ 
 ship of Northfield, Franklin county, Massachusetts, on 
 the fifth day of February, 1805. Even at that early day 
 her family, the descendants of William Holton, had been 
 long settled in the upper Connecticut valley. William 
 Holton, himself born in the colony of Massachusetts Bay 
 of Pilgrim stock, was a member of the general court of 
 Massachusetts and of the committee thereof charged with 
 the duty of laying off the plantation of Northfield, of 
 
2 
 
 which he became a settler. For many years after the 
 settlement the region was much exposed to Indian in¬ 
 cursions, and in this stern school of the pioneer and pa¬ 
 triot was developed that type of character, courageous 
 and sympathetic, but wary, persistent and practical, 
 which to this day has its honorable exemplars in the de¬ 
 scendants of those settlers. 
 
 Here, a true daughter of the soil, and inheriting the 
 sturdy strength, and clean conscientiousness of a virtuous 
 and industrious ancestry, Betsey Holton was born. Here, 
 too, in the practice of these primal virtues she lived out 
 her long and useful life, and here, full of years and honor, 
 she fell asleep. 
 
 In her twenty-third year, January 3, 1828, Betsey Hol¬ 
 ton was married to Edwin Moody, also of pioneer stock 
 in the township of Northfield. Of this marriage were 
 born nine children, seven sons and two daughters; and 
 on May 28, 1841, Edwin Moody died. With the loss of 
 her husband began the heroic struggle with adverse cir¬ 
 cumstances which brought into exercise the strength of 
 mind and the latent heroism of Mrs. Moody’s character. 
 
 Not only were Edwin Moody’s affairs found to be in¬ 
 volved, but even the little hill farm in Northfield which 
 was the homestead was mortgaged, and one month after 
 
3 
 
 his death the two youngest children a boy and girl were 
 born. At this time her eldest child, a daughter, was 
 not yet thirteen years of age. Dwight Lyman, the sixth 
 child, who has since become the evangelist of world-wide 
 fame, was then less than five years old. Stripped of 
 all resources except a mortgaged home, and advised by 
 many to bind out her children, Mrs. Moody, trusting in 
 the promises of God to the widow and the fatherless, re¬ 
 solved to hold her family together. In speaking of this 
 time of trial she said: “I knew that God had given those 
 children to me, and that He would be a Father to them 
 if I would do a mother’s part.” 
 
 And bravely, cheerfully, patiently, she did that part 
 until, grown old enough to help and then to support her, 
 her children lifted from her all care about material 
 things, while repaying her years of toil and privation 
 with unbounded respect and devotion. 
 
 With the rising fame of her son Dwight, Northfield be¬ 
 came a unique gathering place for the great and the good 
 of all lands, and of these multitudes many sought the 
 presence and counsels of this wise, serene and strong- 
 mother in Israel. Soon came the establishment of the 
 great Northfield institutions, the Seminary, Mount Her- 
 mon School, and, later, the Training School; and the 
 
4 
 
 quiet little New England farm village, with no impair¬ 
 ment of its singular beauty and charm, began to thrill 
 with the pulsations of a new life. 
 
 Now, at last, the wider ministry of this ripened char¬ 
 acter began. Strong as the granite of the hills which 
 had formed the horizon of her life, and sweet and peace¬ 
 ful as the smiling valley which those hills inclose, she 
 sat in the home which had sheltered her for sixty-eight 
 years, the birthplace of her children, and the scene of 
 her sorrows and her joys, and received all who came. It 
 is not too much to say that she wrought for lasting good 
 in thousands of lives. Like her Father, she was no re¬ 
 specter of persons. In her large simplicity and uncon¬ 
 sciousness of self, the great and the small were alike to 
 her. World-famous men from over sea, and boys and 
 girls from the schools, all were received with the same 
 perfect courtesy and sympathy. She rejoiced far more 
 in the integrity and usefulness of her celebrated son than 
 in his great fame, for she well knew that to be was of 
 greater moment than to do. For that reason largely she 
 held her children in equal esteem, for she knew that in all 
 of them were the same essential virtues. 
 
 Nothing was more beautiful in Mrs. Moody’s later life 
 than her sympathy with the young. She seemed never 
 
to grow old in heart, and her interest in the schools and 
 in the students personally was very great. 
 
 About one week before her death, Mrs. Moody took 
 a slight cold, and on Friday, January 24, she took to her 
 bed. Though none of her symptons were alarming it 
 was thought prudent to summon the family physician. 
 Her malady was pronounced to be grippe. She seemed 
 wholly free from suffering, the marked symptom being 
 simply a desire to sleep. It soon became evident that 
 the fingers of God were pressing down her tired eyelids, 
 and that He was about to give His beloved sleep. All 
 the family were summoned, and all were with her at the 
 last except her daughter Lizzie, Mrs. Washburn of Ra¬ 
 cine, Wisconsin. Dwight had been conducting meetings 
 in Philadelphia, but arrived late Saturday afternoon and 
 was fully recognized by his mother. 
 
 On Sunday morning, January 26, 1896, at half-past 
 eleven, in the presence of her children and grandchildren , 
 “Grandma Moody” fell asleep in Jesus. She lacked but 
 twelve days of attaining the great age of ninety-one. It 
 was a gbod fight finished. 
 
QTfj© Burial. 
 
 The burial was fixed for Wednesday, January 29. At 
 quarter past nine the family only gathered at the old 
 homestead, and Mr. Dwight L. Moody offered prayer. 
 The body was then taken, the grandsons acting as 
 bearers, to Revell Cottage, one of the buildings of North- 
 field Seminary, where it was received by the teachers and 
 young ladies of the Seminary and of the Training School, 
 who acted as an escort to the Congregational church, of 
 which Mrs. Moody was a member. There the features 
 were viewed by the hundreds of students, neighbors and 
 friends. 
 
 The whole service was filled with an indescribable 
 feeling of victory and triumph. Sorrow there was, deep 
 and sincere, but no sense of regret or of defeat. Death 
 indeed had no victory. As the family entered the church 
 the choir and congregation sang “Blessed Hope,” and 
 the hymns used all bore the impress of confident assur¬ 
 
 ance. 
 
7 
 
 Speaking from I Corinthians xv: 55, “O death, where 
 is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” the pastor, 
 Rev. C. I. Scofield, said in part: 
 
 To Paul more than to any other of the writers of the 
 New Testament there seemed to be given a sense of the 
 victoriousness of the Christian’s faith. Nothing could 
 keep him from exultation, triumph, defiant glorying in 
 Christ. He reminds us of Elijah, alone against the four 
 hundred and fifty prophets of Baal, but so sure before¬ 
 hand of the power of his God that he could afford to taunt 
 them with the impotency of theirs. And yet to none 
 other of the writers was it given to fathom so profound¬ 
 ly the abyss of guilt and ruin into which the race is 
 plunged. He evades nothing, closes his eyes to noth¬ 
 ing, shuts his mind to no deepest problem of mystery and 
 despair. His exultation is not gained by the cheap 
 process of refusing to see the utter worst that can be 
 said. This thoroughness gives us confidence. It fills 
 his shout of victory with reality, while it empties it of 
 bravado. 
 
 You know how, in this spirit, he faces in the Romans 
 the whole case against man as guilty and undone. He 
 defines that gospel of which he is not ashamed because it 
 is the power of God unto salvation as being not only the 
 
8 
 
 revelation of the righteousness of God to faith, but also 
 as the revelation of the wrath of God from heaven 
 against all unrighteousness of men. And then all human¬ 
 ity passes before us to see if haply we may find a right¬ 
 eous man. First the degraded heathen, and then the 
 cultured heathen, and then the Jew; and then he sums 
 up the case against man with crushing thoroughness. 
 He enters a plea of guilty to every charge. The final 
 indictment is terrific. Throat, tongue, lips, mouth, feet, 
 eyes, ways—with and in all these we are guilty. As if 
 that were not enough he bids Sinai to speak. In our 
 guilt we hear the thunder of the law: “What things so¬ 
 ever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the 
 law; that every mouth may be stopped, and all the 
 world become guilty before God.” 
 
 Alas, if that were God’s last word as well as man’s! 
 But just when we are ready to call Romans an epistle 
 of despair Paul erects over against Sinai the great red 
 cross and shows us how atonement makes way for jus¬ 
 tifying grace, and then, height beyond height, through 
 peace, and grace, and joy, he mounts until at last he 
 brings us out upon the great glory-lighted plateau of the 
 eighth of Romans and there shouts “Victory!” and flings 
 back his triumphant defiance: “Who shall lay anything 
 to the charge of God’s elect? it is God that justifieth.” 
 
9 
 
 Even in that breathless moment so sane is the Spirit 
 in this man that he is not suffered to forget the sorrows 
 and trials of life. He looks at these: “tribulation, or 
 distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or 
 sword,” shall these separate us from the love of Christ? 
 Nay, in all these things also we are more than conquerors 
 through Him that loved us. 
 
 Now in the same fearless way Paul faces the whole 
 problem of death. He does not deny it. He does not 
 garland the grave, nor say sentimental things about it. 
 He will not trifle with breaking hearts, nor medicine 
 them with either poetical or pious fictions. “In Adam 
 all die.” Even Christ must die. The victory of death 
 is confessed. It is Romans over again: “And so death 
 passed upon all men.” And he says that death is an 
 enemy. Death is an abnormal thing. It was no part of 
 the primal purpose that God’s creation should be ridged 
 with graves and drenched in blood and tears. Paul 
 states the case for death as strongly as it can be stated. 
 
 But just when we are ready to salute the implacable 
 fates and crown death victor, the cross is upreared again, 
 and again we are more than conquerors. There is a 
 second man, a last Adam, who infinitely more than re¬ 
 stores the lost Eden of the first. We go down to the very 
 
10 
 
 grave to sing our song of victory. “It is sown.” Yes. 
 But “sown” is not ruined. “Sown” speaks of harvest. 
 “Sown” is a pregnant, prophetic word. Out of it the 
 apostle gets his series of victorious antitheses: 
 
 It is sown in 
 corruption , 
 dishonor , 
 ?iatural , 
 earthy , 
 
 It is raised in 
 i?icorruptio7i , 
 glory , 
 spiritual , 
 heavenly , 
 
 and right there over the very grave, in the very presence 
 of seeming defeat, we triumph once more in the mighty 
 word resurrection. Tears and the open grave cannot 
 let him of this boasting. 
 
 You know how in Second Corinthians he returns to 
 this theme, the strong, joyous Christian doctrine of death. 
 Itbegins, “We know,” (II Cor. v: i) and proceeds, “we 
 are always confident,” and “we are willing.” Death is 
 defined. On the physical side it is the letting down of a 
 worn tent—for that is a literal rendering of the passage: 
 
 ‘ ‘if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved’ ’ 
 —on the spiritual side it is “present with the Lord.” 
 Instantly! No room here for the unconscious, apathetic 
 abode of soul and spirit in the grave. The eyes of our 
 
II 
 
 sister closed to earth last Lord’s day morning and in¬ 
 stantly opened in glory. 
 
 This is Christ’s doctrine. “The beggar died.” He 
 does not stop to tell us what they did with the beggar’s 
 body, but He hastens to tell us where the beggar was— 
 “and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom.” 
 And then the words drop down like celestial music, 
 “Lazarus is comforted 
 
 With all my soul I protest against the heathenizing 
 which one sees everywhere of our beautiful Christian 
 doctrine of death. It is a legacy of medievalism and 
 monkery. The Catacombs knew nothing of this gloom; 
 of broken columns, and inverted torches, and sable 
 plumes. When the day’s butchery in the arena was 
 done the early Christians put their martyred dead in the 
 grave and wrote over them the inscriptions which you 
 may read there to-day: ‘ ‘Alexander lives above the stars,” 
 “Prudentia conquers.” The cloister, not the catacombs, 
 degraded our Christian doctrine of death. 
 
 Then, to crown all, in First Thessalonians we are told 
 that resurrection is the work of our Coming Lord, and 
 hence is possible at any moment. He may tarry, but so, 
 too, He may come this very day. 
 
 And so, friends, we are not gathered here to mourn a 
 
12 
 
 defeat, but even through tears to lift up our banners and 
 cry, “O death, where is thy sting; O grave, where is thy 
 victory.” A good fight has been fought, a good course 
 run, the faith kept. “Thanks be to God who giveth us 
 the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” 
 
 It would savor of impertinence for me, recently come 
 among you, and one who entered so slightly into Mrs. 
 Moody’s life to speak to you, her relatives, friends and 
 neighbors, in detail of that life. You know these things 
 better than I. 
 
 But because my vision of her is free from memory 
 of confusing details, perhaps it has been given to me to 
 see some of the larger outlines and harmonious propor¬ 
 tions of that character. 
 
 It seems to me that the doric simplicity and majesty 
 of her character was due largely to this, that, untroubled 
 by the complexities of our latter day life, she possessed 
 the great elemental virtues. 
 
 What courage she had! True courage is compounded 
 of endurance with cheerfulness. How uncomplainingly 
 she lifted the sore burden of poverty, debt, toil. How 
 cheerfully she bore it until loving hands, nourished into 
 strength by herself, lifted it away. The real battles of 
 
13 
 
 womanly life are not out in the open field where the 
 thunder of the guns and the shout of the captains fill the 
 air. They are by kitchen and cradle. There she fought 
 and conquered. 
 
 How beautiful against the darkening background of 
 latter day eagerness to be quickly rich by any means 
 glows this widow’s stainless integrity. She could toil, 
 and did, but she could not cozen and cheat and lie, and 
 make debts for others to pay. 
 
 And our times, too, furnish a foil for her simple 
 womanliness. The modern unrest and egotism and 
 craving for applause never entered her heart. To be a 
 woman and fill a woman’s place was enough. She 
 could have thought of no place higher than that of wife 
 and mother. And so she had peace, and so she came to 
 an influence which is to-day felt in every part of the in¬ 
 habited earth. She takes her place with the historic 
 mothers, with the mother of the Wesleys and of Augus¬ 
 tine. No self-conscious restlessness could have brought 
 her that crown. It seems to me that if her life has one 
 lesson supreme above all others it is that it is not open 
 to mortal to do a greater thing than to rear a child for 
 God. 
 
 She glorified American motherhood and motherhood 
 
transfigured her. It pleased God to give one of her sons 
 world-wide distinction. Of this she had a premonition. 
 She often said that one of her sons would rise to great 
 usefulness. When it came she was modestly thankful, 
 but the work she did as mother was so equally done for 
 all her children that in essential character the celebrated 
 child does not differ from his brothers and sisters. 
 
 But after all, is not this the crowning lesson of this 
 long life now ended, and does not its impressiveness lie 
 in this, that her character was wrought out and her life 
 work done in what would seem to many narrow and ad¬ 
 verse circumstances? Ninety-one years ago there was 
 no railroad, no telegraph, no daily paper, and, in the 
 farmhouses of Massachusetts, but few books. We think 
 of money as desirable for our children. But here in the 
 circle of these hills, without influence, without book 
 learning, without money, God brought our sister to this 
 greatness. 
 
 Best of all, she was unconscious of it. It may be said 
 of her she “wist not.” Tested by poverty she came 
 forth from the trial unsoured; tested by attention and 
 flattery and ease—she would never abide luxury—she 
 came forth unspoiled. 
 
 May this strong, simple, wise, brave woman become 
 
15 
 
 through her memory to us, what in life she was to her 
 children, an illustration of that faith in God which leads 
 to high, clean, simple, useful living, and triumphant 
 dying. 
 
 At the conclusion of the pastor’s remarks Mrs. William 
 R. Moody sang Tennyson’s 
 
 Crossing the Bar. 
 
 Twilight and evening bell, 
 
 And after that the dark! 
 
 And may there be no sadness of farewell, 
 
 When I embark; 
 
 For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place, 
 
 The flood may bear me far, 
 
 I hope to see my Pilot face to face 
 When I have crost the bar. 
 
Mv. X. MmJbg’g GLnbviU fo 
 
 BMIjn\ 
 
 When Mrs. William R. Moody had concluded her song 
 “Crossing the Bar,” Mr. Dwight L. Moody rose from his 
 place with the family and, bearing in his hands the old 
 family Bible, and a worn book of devotions, came forward. 
 Standing by the body of his mother, he said: 
 
 It is not the custom, perhaps, for a son to take part in 
 such an occasion. If I can control myself I would like 
 to say a few words. It is a great honor to be the son of 
 such a mother. I do not know where to begin; I could 
 not praise her enough. In the first place my mother 
 was a very wise woman. In one sense she w,as wiser 
 than Solomon; she knew how to bring up her children. 
 She had nine children and they all loved their home. 
 She won their hearts, their affections, she could do any¬ 
 thing with them. 
 
 Whenever I wanted real sound counsel I used to go to 
 my mother. I have traveled a good deal and seen a 
 good many mothers, but I never saw one who had such 
 tact as she had. She so bound her children to her that 
 
17 
 
 it was a great calamity to have to leave home. I had 
 two brothers that lived in Kansas and died there. Their 
 great longing was to get back to their mother. My 
 brother who died in Kansas a short time ago had been 
 looking over the Greenfield papers for some time to 
 see if he could not buy a farm in this locality. He had 
 a good farm there, but he was never satisfied; he want¬ 
 ed to get back to mother. That is the way she won her 
 family, she won them to herself. 
 
 I have heard something within the last forty-eight 
 hours that nearly broke my heart. I merely mention it 
 to show what a character she was. My eldest sister, her 
 oldest daughter, told me that the first year after my 
 father died she wept herself to sleep every night. Yet 
 she was always bright and cheerful in the presence of 
 her children, and they never knew anything about it. 
 Her sorrows drove her to Him, and in her own room, 
 after we were asleep, I would, wake up and hear her 
 praying, and sometimes I would hear her weeping. She 
 would be sure her children were all asleep before she 
 would pour out her tears. 
 
 And there was another thing remarkable about my 
 mother. If she loved one child more than another no 
 one ever found it out. Isaiah, he was her first boy; she 
 
i8 
 
 could not get along without Isaiah. And Cornelia, she 
 was her first girl; she could not get along without Cor¬ 
 nelia, for she had to take care of the twins. And George, 
 she couldn’t live without George. What could she ever 
 have done without George? He staid right by her 
 through thick and thin. She couldn’t live without 
 George. And Edwin, he bore the name of her husband. 
 And Dwight, I don’t know what she thought of him. 
 And Luther, he was the dearest of all, because he had 
 to go away to live. He was always homesick to get 
 back to mother. And Warren, he was the youngest 
 when father died; it seemed as if he was dearer than all 
 the rest. And Sam and Lizzie, the twins, they were the 
 light of her great sorrow. 
 
 She never complained of her children. It is a great 
 thing to have such a mother, and I feel like.standing up 
 here to-day to praise her. And just here I want to say 
 before I forget it, you don’t know how she appreciated 
 the kindness which was shown her in those days of early 
 struggle. Sometimes I would come home and say such 
 a man did so and so, and she would say, “Don’t say that, 
 Dwight; he was kind to me.” 
 
 My father died a bankrupt, and the creditors came 
 and swept everything we had. They took everything, 
 
even the kindling wood; and there came on a snowstorm, 
 and the next morning mother said we would have to 
 stay in bed until school time because there was no wood 
 to make a fire. Then all at once I heard some one chop¬ 
 ping wood, and it was my Uncle Sam. I tell you I have 
 always had a warm heart for that uncle for that act. 
 And that night there came the biggest load of wood I 
 ever saw in my life. It took two yoke of oxen to draw 
 it. It was that uncle that brought it. That act followed 
 me all through life, and a good many acts, in fact. Mr. 
 Everett, the pastor of the Unitarian church, I remember 
 how kind he was in those days. I want to testify to-day 
 how my mother appreciated that. 
 
 I remember the first thing I did to earn money was to 
 turn the neighbor’s cows up on Strowbridge Mountain. 
 I got a cent a week for it. I never thought of spending 
 it on myself. It was to go to mother. It went into the 
 common treasury. And I remember when George got 
 work we asked who was going to milk the cows. Mother 
 said she would milk. She also made our clothes, and 
 wove the cloth, and spun the yarn, and darned our stock¬ 
 ings; and there was never any complaining. 
 
 I thought so much of my mother I cannot say half 
 enough. That dear face! There was no sweeter face 
 
20 
 
 on earth. Fifty years I have been coming back and was 
 always glad to get back. When I got within fifty miles 
 of home I always grew restless and walked up and down 
 the car. It seemed to me as if the train would never 
 get to Northfield. For sixty-eight years she has lived 
 on that hill, and when I came back after dark I always 
 looked to see the light in mother’s window. When I got 
 home last Saturday night—I was going to take the four 
 o’clock train from New York and get here at twelve; I 
 had some business to do; but I Suppose it was the good 
 Lord that sent me; I took the twelve o’clock train and 
 got here at five—I went in to my mother. I was so glad 
 I got back in time to be recognized. I said, “Mother, 
 do you know me?” She said, “I guess I do !” I like 
 that word, that Yankee word “guess!” The children 
 were all with her when she was taking her departure. 
 At last I called, “Mother, mother.” No answer. She 
 had fallen asleep; but I shall call her again by and by, 
 Friends, it is not a time of mourning. I want you to 
 understand we do not mourn. We are proud that we 
 had such a mother. We have a wonderful legacy left us. 
 
 One day mother sent for me. I went to see what she 
 wanted, and she said she wanted to divide her things. 
 I said, “Well, mother, we don’t want anything you’ve 
 
21 
 
 got; we want you. We have got you, and that’s all we 
 want.” “Yes, but I want to do something.” I said to 
 her, “Then write out what you want, and I will carry it 
 out.” That didn’t satisfy her. Finally she said, “Dwight, 
 I want them all to have something.” That was my 
 mother, and that was the way she bound us to her. 
 
 Now, I have brought the old Bible, the family Bible, 
 for it all came from that book. That is about the only 
 book we had in the house when father died, and out of 
 that book she taught us. And if my mother has been a 
 blessing to this world, it is because she drank at this 
 fountain. I have read twice at family worship, and will 
 read here a few verses which she has marked. 
 
 “Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above 
 rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her.” 
 
 She has been a widow for fifty-four years, and yet she 
 loved her husband the day she died as much as she ever 
 did. I never heard one word and she never taught her 
 children to do anything but just reverence our father. 
 She loved him right up to the last. 
 
 “She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her 
 hands.” 
 
 That is my mother. 
 
22 
 
 “She considereth a field and buyeth it; with the fruit of her 
 hands she planteth a vineyard. She girdeth her loins with 
 strength, and strengtheneth her arms. She perceiveth that her 
 merchandise is good; her caddie goeth not out by night.” 
 
 Widow Moody’s light has burned on that hill for fifty- 
 four years to my knowledge. It has been burning there 
 for fifty-four years, in that one room. We built a room 
 for her, where she could be more comfortable, but she 
 was not often there. There was just one room where 
 she wanted to be. Her children were born there, her 
 first sorrow came there, and that was where God had met 
 her. That is the place she liked to stay, where her chil¬ 
 dren liked to meet her, where she worked and toiled and 
 wept. 
 
 “She stretcheth out her hands to the poor; yea, she reacheth 
 forth her hands to the needy.” 
 
 Now, there is one thing about my mother, she never 
 turned away any poor from her home. There was one 
 time we got down to less than a loaf of bread. Some 
 one came along hungry, and she says, “Now, children, 
 shall I cut your slices a little thinner and give some to 
 this person?” And we all voted for her to do it. That 
 is the way she taught us. 
 
23 
 
 “She is not afraid of the snow for her household; for all her 
 household are clothed with scarlet.” 
 
 She would let the neighbors’ boys in, all over the house, 
 and track in the snow; and wdien there was going to be 
 a party she would say, “Who will stay with me? I will 
 be all alone; why don’t you ask them to come here?” In 
 that way she kept them all at home, and knew where 
 her children were. The door was never locked at night 
 until she knew they were all in bed, safe and secure. 
 Nothing was too hard for her if she could only spare her 
 children. 
 
 The seven boys were like Hannibal, whose mother 
 took him to the altar and made him swear vengeace on 
 Rome. She took us to the altar and made us swear ven¬ 
 geance on whiskey, and everything that was an enemy 
 to the human family; and we have been fighting it ever 
 since and will to the end of our days. 
 
 My mother used to punish me; I honor her for that, I 
 do not object to punishment. She used to send me out 
 to get a stick. It would take a long time to get it, and 
 then I used to get a dead stick if I could. She would try 
 it and if it would break easily, then I had to go and get 
 another. She was not in a hurry and did not tell me to 
 hurry, because she knew all the time that I was being 
 
24 
 
 punished. I would go out and be gone a long time. 
 When I came in she would tell me to take off my coat, and 
 then she would put the birch on; and I remember once 
 I said, “That doesn’t hurt.” She put it on all the harder, 
 and I never did that the second time. And once in 
 awhile she would take me and she would say, “You 
 know I would rather put this on myself than to put it on 
 you.” I would look up and see tears in her eyes. That 
 was enough for me. 
 
 What more can I say? You have lived with her and 
 you know about her. I want to give you one verse, her 
 creed. Her creed was very short. Do you know what 
 it was? I will tell you what it was, When everything 
 went against her this was her stay, “My trust is in God.” 
 “My trust is in God.” And when the neighbors would 
 come in and tell her to bind out her children, she would 
 say, “Not as long as I have these two hands.” “Well,” 
 they would say, ‘ ‘you know one woman cannot bring up 
 seven boys; they will turn up in jail, or with a rope 
 around their necks.” She toiled on, and none of us went 
 to jail, and none of us has had a rope around his neck. 
 And if every one had a mother like that mother, if the 
 world was mothered by that kind of mothers, there 
 would be no need for jails. 
 
25 
 
 “Leave thy fatherless children; he will preserve them alive.” 
 
 Here is a book (the little book of devotions); this and 
 the Bible were about all the books she had in those days; 
 and every morning she would stand us up and read out of 
 this book. All through this book I find things marked. 
 
 Every Saturday night—we used to begin to observe 
 the Sabbath at sundown Saturday night, and at sun¬ 
 down Sunday night we would run out and throw up our 
 caps and let off our jubilant spirits—this is what she 
 would give us Saturday night, and it has gone with me 
 through life. Not all of it, I could not remember it all: 
 
 “How pleasant it is on Saturday night 
 When I’ve tried all the week to be good.” 
 
 And on Sunday she always started us off to Sunday 
 school. It was not a debatable question whether we 
 should go or not. All the family attended. 
 
 I do not know, of course we do not know, whether the 
 departed ones are conscious of what is going on on earth. 
 If I knew that she was I would send her a message that 
 we are coming on after her. If I could, I believe I would 
 send a message after her, not only for the family, and the 
 town, but for the Seminary. She was always so much 
 interested in the young ladies of the Seminary. She 
 
26 
 
 seemed to be as young as any of them, and entered into 
 the joys of the young people just as much as any one. I 
 want to say to the young ladies of the Seminary, who 
 acted as maids of honor to escort my mother down to the 
 church this morning, that I want you to trust my mother’s 
 Saviour. 
 
 I want to say to the young men of Mount Hermon, 
 you are going to have a great honor to escort Mother 
 to her last resting place. Her prayers for you ascended 
 daily to the throne of grace. Now, I am going to give 
 you the best I have; I am going to do the best I can; I 
 am going to lay her away with her face toward Hermon. 
 
 I think she is one of the noblest characters this world 
 has ever seen. She was true as sunlight; I never knew 
 that woman to deceive me. 
 
 I want to thank Dr. Scofield for the comforting words 
 he has brought Us to-day. It is a day of rejoicing, not 
 of regret. She went without a pain, without a struggle, 
 just like a person going to sleep. And now we are to lay 
 her body away to await His coming in resurrection 
 power. When I see her in the morning she is to have a 
 glorious body. The body Moses had on the Mount of 
 Transfiguration was a better body than God buried on 
 
 i 
 
 Pisgah. When we see Elijah he will have a glorious 
 
27 
 
 body. That dear mother, when I see her again, is going 
 to have a glorified body. (Looking at her face) God 
 bless you, mother; we love you still. Death has only 
 increased our love. Good-bye for a little while, mother. 
 Let us pray. 
 
 Escorted by the Mount Hermon students the body ot 
 Mrs. Moody was then tenderly borne by her grandsons 
 to its resting place on a beautiful knoll, adjoining North- 
 field cemetery, overlooking the lovely Connecticut valley, 
 and lies awaiting the moment when “the Lord Himself 
 shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice 
 of the archangel and the trump of God, and the dead in 
 Christ shall rise first.” 
 
 As the obsequies were closed there arose from more 
 than one heart the prayer, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus.” 
 

 »*UVAN L PERSON 
 
 -ssr.'t v'