INQUIRY MEETINGS.
But the great matter is to hold inquiry meetings, and thus pull the net in, and see if you have caught anything. If you are always mending and setting the net, you won’t catch many fish. Whoever heard of a man going out to fish, and setting his net, and then letting it stop there, and never pulling it in? Why, everybody would laugh at the man’s folly.
There was a minister in Manchester who came to me one day, and said, “I wish you would tell me why we ministers don’t succeed better than we do.” So I brought before him this idea of pulling in the net, and I said, You ought to pull in your nets. I said there are many ministers in Manchester who can preach much better than I can, but then I pull in the net. Many people have objections to inquiry meetings, but I urged upon him the importance of them, and the minister said, “I never did pull in the net; I will try next Sunday.” He did so, and eight persons, anxious inquirers, went into his study. The next Sunday he came down to see me, and said he had never had such a Sunday in his life. He had met with marvellous blessing. The next time he drew the net there were forty, and when he came to see me at the Opera House the other day, he said to me joyfully, “Moody, I have had eight hundred conversions this last year! It is a great mistake I did not begin earlier to pull in the net.” So, my friends, if you want to catch men,