One Who Refused The Holy Spirit.
The following incident is related by D.L. Moody, the Evangelist, which contains a warning, how the Holy Spirit avenges itself to those who refuse its admonitions. It is a remarkable instance of the control of an overruling God, who alone knew that man's mind, and which alone could bring that text so often to his memory:
"There was a young man in my native village--he was not a young man when I was talking to him--we were working on the farm together one day and he was weeping; I asked him what he was weeping about, and he told me a very strange story. When he left home his mother gave him the text: 'Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.' He was ambitious to get rich, and thought when he had got comfortable, that was the time to give his attention to religion. He went from village to village, and got nothing to do. Sunday came, and he went into the village church. What was his great surprise to hear the minister preach from that text. It went down into his heart--he thought that it was his mother's prayers that were following him--he thought the whole sermon was for himself, and thought he would like to get out. For days be could not get that text and sermon out of his mind. He went on still, from village to village, and at last he went into another church after weeks had rolled away. He went for some Sundays to the church, and it wasn't a great while before the minister gave out this very text. He thought surely it was God calling him then, and he said, coolly and deliberately, he would not seek the Kingdom of God. He went on in this way, and in the course of a few months, to his great surprise, he heard the third sermon from the third minister on the same text. He tried to stifle it, but it followed him. At last he made up his mind he would not go to church any more. When he came back to Northfield, after years, his mother had died, but the text kept coming to him over and over, and he said, 'I will not become a Christian;' and said he to me, 'Moody, my heart is as hard as that stone.' It was all Greek to me, because I was not a Christian myself at the time. After my conversion, in Boston, he was about the first man I thought of. When I got back and asked my mother about him, she told me he was gone out of his mind, and to every one who went to the asylum to see him he pointed his finger and said: 'Seek ye first the Kingdom, of God and His Righteousness.' When I went back to my native village, after that, I was told he was still out of his mind, but at home. I went to see him, and asked him did he know me. He was rocking backwards and forwards in his rocking chair, and he gave me that vacant stare and pointed to me as he said, 'Young man, seek first the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness.' When, last month, I laid down my younger brother in his grave, I could not help but think of that man lying but a few yards away. May every man and woman here be wise for eternity and seek now the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness, is my prayer."