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VOL. LXXXVII. Ria
Wanted A (
Eleven men, students in the school of Jesus
Christ, had seen their Master rise out of their
sight into heaven. They were commissioned
to save the world, but were powerless. He had
told them that the dynamo of power was the
lloly Ghost, and He would come if they asked
the Father. In the upper room of their lodging
house, with a few other choice men and
women, they immediately started a ten-day's
prayer meeting?not an hour or two a day,
as we do, but letting everything else go, a continuous
pouring out of their hearts to God.
Under like circumstances God the Holy Ghost
never failed to come, and never will. "With
the uplift of that prayer meeting, no wonder
that Peter's lips were touched with a live
* ** - -x* *i- - .n -1 .A. 1 i.1 1
com irora on uie auur. ana in rut* uiousuuu
son Is were saved.
THE REVIVAL, OF 1857.
The great lievival of 1857 was born ir
prayer. Prayer, song and brief exhortation
rather than preaching, were the features oi
that wonderful and wide-spread awakening. J
well knew Jeremiah C. Lanphier, the humbh
lay missionary, who struck the match, whicl
lighted the world. At twelve o'clock, Sep
tember 28, 1857, in a room in the North Dutcl
Church, Fulton St., New York, after libera
distribution of handbills, all through th<
neighborhood, the Fulton St., Prayer meeting
began. Yes, it began* at 12 o'clock, but fo
half an hour only two were there, the Almigh
ty God and Mr. Lanphier. After that five otk
era came in, one by one. A week later ther
were twenty present, and on October 7th, for
ty. Then it was decided to hold it daily, an<
more and more, all classes of men, from capi
talists to draymen, were represented. Begir
ning with men only, gradually women also a1
tendied. By January three rooms in the builc
iner were crowded with simultaneous meel
ings. In the Spring of 1858 the large*
churches in the city, the police and fire d<
partment, and many stores, were opened t
accommodate the tens of thousands gathere
to pray.
While prayer and brief exhortations hel
first place, preaching services were begun i
theaters, churches and all manner of place
The daily press carried the wondrous new
far and wide, and in all the great cities and i
thousands of smaller ones, daily union pray<
meetings were established.
HOW THE FIKE SPREAD.
Philadelphia -was one of the first cities 1
catch the lire. A member of its Y. M. C. A
having attended the Fulton Street meetin
suggested to his fellow members, its inaugur
tion. At first the attendance was small. T1
anteroom pf Jaynes Hall was engaged wil
favorable results. Later swelling numbers r
quired the use of the great hall and seats ai
galleries were crowded. Various other hal
The Southwi
U^JKfUJ^gy JhESoum
-1MOND. NEW ORLEANS, ATLANTA. \
jfeat Revival
By HENRY W. ADAMS
were engaged throughout the city, and in a
big tent, used during the Summer, there was
an aggregate attendance of over 150,000. My
parents were so-journing in Philadelphia, and
their graphic letters were a wonderful inspiration.
From that time on the holy conflagration
spread far and wide. At Boston, Evangelist
Chas. G. Finney and others, started a daily
business men's prayer meeting, in the Old
South Church, and that and various other
meetings were crowded. As in Samaria under
the preaching of Philip, "There was great joy
in that city." in some towns in New England
almost the entire population were converted.
In Chicago two thousand assembled daily in
the Metropolitan theater, and many churches
L held services of prayer. Especially through
out the Northern States, almost the whole
country came under its sway.
; WHAT PRESIDENT FINNEY SAID.
1 Evangelist Finney said at this time, "There
was such confidence in prevailing prayer that
1 people seemed to prefer meetings tor prayer
f rather than for preaching. They said we have
B had instruction until we are hardened; it is
I time for us to pray. Evidently in answer to
r prayer the window? of heaven were opened
and the Spirit of God poured out like a Hood."
i- Sometime in 1858 the Presbyterian Synod of
e Ireland sent a delegation to study the movement,
and in 1859 a great revival of a similar
d character swept over Great Britain,
i- Jeremiah Lanphier, whom God used to inl
aiitmrate this crreat, movement, not snmassed
O o t x
t- since the clay of Pentecost, never struck me as
I- being a great man. He was an humble layt
man, who had left his business and all to folit
low Jesus Christ, in ministering to the neglects'
ed ones of lower New York. On his knees he
o asked, "Lord what wilt thou have me to dot"
d and God, who was waiting for a man, humble
and willing, whispered in his ears, and this
d mighty work of blessing was born.
11
STORY OF THE TRAVELLING MAN.
S.
In 1874 I was acquainted with a New York
*> c- i t\ : 4.:^ A~ iuA
LU v^uiiiuicrciai i rovcucr. i/uriii^ a tup iu uic
jr west he was suddenly overwhelmed by the
news that his only boy had died. The letter
was greatly delayed so that his darling had
been laid in the grave ten days before. Under
to the sway of his grief business lost all its
l-, charms. Just then he heard that at Peoria IIg,
linois, two or three hundred miles away, there
a- was to be a State Prayer Meeting. He had
if. never heard of such a gathering before, and he
th thought, "May he it is the voice of Jesus to
e;v ray soul saying, 'Come unto Me poor burdened
id one, and I will give you rest.' " Ha went imlls
mediately, and sure enough, found something
estepnpresbytep/am
i Presbyter/an <
'ern Presbyter/ah
1AY7, 1913. , NO. tJb- I 0
i of Prayer
different from anything he had ever dreamed
of. There were no great sermons or speeches.
usiy uiier ujny were pray era uuu. su^pacauuu
from men whose hearts God had touched. Interspersed
were short, earnest, practical talks.
The travelling man *s heart was moved as never
before. He went back to his hotel and surro'unded
by his samples, on his knees, lifted
up his cry. "Lord what wilt thou have me to
do?" He surrendered all and left that city
a new man, filled with the Holy Ghost.
Not long after that, although comparatively
an unlettered man, God used him in starting
and conducting a great gospel publishing en
terprise, in New York City. Hundreds were
saved through its instrumentality, and hundreds
more were quickenecf to greater consecration
and higher service for God and man.
God only knows how many other hearts were
quickened and lives born anew, in that State
Prayer Meeting, but doubtless there were others
and the story will be told by and by in the
Eternal City.
T /\<3Arvh AT*
k?i.
LOCAL UNION WITH THE UNITED PRESBYTERIAN
CHURCH AN ACCOMPLISHED
FACT.
REV. F. Z. BROWNE, M. A.
When in Oxford, Miss., in attendance upon
the sessions of the Synod of Mississippi, I had
the pleasure of discussing the question of the
prospective union of the United and Southern
Presbyterian Churches with Prof. John N.
?wan, tnc writer or tne sKetcn 01 tne nistory
of the United Presbyterian Church which appeared
in the Presbyterian of the South of date
Dec. 4, 1912. Having known and learned to
love at Princeton Theological Seminary many
who are now ministers of the United Presbyterian
Church, one of whom was intimately
known to Prof. Swan, the conversation was to
me filled with a peculiar interest.
Prof. Swan questioned me at once about the
local union of the Southern and United Presbyterian
congregations which was consummated
at Starkville, Mississippi under my pastorate
in 1911. As there were only two United Presbyterian
Churches south of Mason and Dixon's
line, the other being at Stuttgart, Arkansas,
1 gathered the impression during this conversation
that the local union at Starkville was a
fact known to the United' Presbyterian Church
at large and had aroused much interest and
comment in the ranks of that denomination.
It may he that here in Starkville the seeds of
ultimate union of the two denominations were
sown. Here at least an important step in the
direction of union was made.
More especially since the committees have
not divulged the terms of the basis of union
to be submitted to the General Assembly of
both churches at Atlanta, a brief statement of
conditions and of terms of local union at