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Revival Luncheon in Philadelphia Stirring Scenes at Hotel Luncheon. —A Girl’s Remarkable Transformation. —The Story of Dr. Jacoby’s Conversion. By GEORGE T. B. DAVIS URING the past few days new and striking developments of revival enthu siasm have been witnessed in different sections of Philadelphia. One night re cently Mr. Alexander went out to a little church in West Philadelphia and addressed an audience of only about 200 in the basement of the building. At first the people were cold and unre- sponsive; but before the meeting finally ended the revival spirit burst into a bright flame. At the con clusion of the first meeting, a dozen men gathered around the gospel singer and confessed that they had not been leading right lives. During the pray er-meeting which followed, a baptism of fire seemed to come upon the little group. The church has since been completely transformed, and the entire neighborhood has been stirred as never before. They are having conversions at every service. A business man who was present at the meeting led by Mr. Alexander was so filled with revival fer vor that the other morning, before beginning the day’s work, he called his employes together and had prayer with them that God would keep them from profanity and other evils during the day. Revivals at Luncheon. Another man who was present at the basement meeting was a prominent real estate man, who now says that although he had been a member of the church for twenty-five years, he had not been a 'Christian. He now goes about testifying every where for Christ. He has had notices posted up in all his houses That no more inspection will be al lowed on Sundays. Last Friday he gave a busi ness men’s luncheon at the Colonial Hotel in honor of Mr. Alexander. About forty young business and professional men were present, and before the meal ended the revival fire had brokn out so strongly that five men stood up around the table and then and there declared that they would confess Christ as their Savior. More than one man present was in tears, and the luncheon closed with the singing of two revival hymns. It was the first revival lunch eon ever held in Philadelphia. Mr. Alexander says it was one of the most remarkable scenes he ever witnessed since the beginning of his world-wide tour. The Fire of the Holy Spirit. One afternoon a Philadelphia pastor told how Dr. Alexander had visited his church and spoken one night, and as the result a genuine revival had been started. The next afternoon Dr. Torrey spoke on the Holy Spirit as the “Spirit of burning” (Matt. 3:1). He told how, when God’s Spirit comes upon us in power. He burns up our dross, and illustrated his words by the remarkable story of a young woman which held the breathless at tention of his hearers. He said: “The fire of the Holy Ghost cleanses by consum ing the dross and the scum. Oh, there is so much in us that needs to be burned up—that’s all it is good for. Pride, family pride, race pride, pride of wealth, spiritual pride, all kinds of pride, self ish ambition, impure thought, greed for gold, harsh ness and bitterness all need to be burned up. Now, friends, moral cleansing by the old methods is a very slow process; but a baptism of the Spirit of burning can work wonders in a second. “I remember a young woman who once came to the Bible Institute to study. She was everything that a young woman going into Christian work ought not to be. She was loud, boisterous, self-assert ive, headstrong; in fact, when I heard she was coming to the Institute— I had known her in Mas sachusetts—l went over to the superintendent of the Woman’s Department, who also knew her, and said, ‘>So-anJSo is coming to the Bible Institute.’ She said, ‘ls she? What is she coming here for?’ But the young woman's uncle was the best friend the Bible Imtitute ever had; io, egelnit our better The Golden Age for March 29, 1906. judgment I am afraid, we consented to take her for her uncle’s sake. Stubbornness Burned Away. “ She came out there and she was stubborn and loud and rebellious and pretty much everything that a Christian worker should not be. It was required of her, as of every other young woman in the Institute, that on certain afternoons in every w-eek she should go down to the poorer parts of the city, go from tenement to tenement and from family to family, trying to do them good. One day she had been down to the lower streets of North Chicago. Utterly disgusted with the vile sights and the vile smells, and the poverty, hunger and want, she said, ‘I have had enough of this,’ and instead of coming right back to the Institute, she went down to Lake Shore Drive. She walked past Potter Palmer’s mansion and past General Tor rence’s mansion, and the rest of them, and said to herself, ‘I have had enough of Milton avenue; I have had enough of Townsend street; I have had enough of dirt and poverty; this is what I like, and this is what I am going to have.’ “She came back to the Institute in that rebel lious mood. As she was getting ready for tea she was still in that rebellious mood. She went down to tea with the other young women in that mood. She had been at the table but a few moments when the Spirit of burning fell right where she was sit ting. In an instant she sprang to her feet, rushed across the room, threw her arms around the neck of a young lady friend, and said, ‘I am a volun teer for Africa!’ And the fire of God burned and burned, and that girl was completely transformed in her views of life, in her thought, in her ambi tions, in her manner; her very face was so changed that one could hardly believe their eyes and ears. Belief in the Bible. “I was away when all this happened. I got back some two or three days afterward, and my secre tary told me of the transformation that had been effected in that girl’s life. A few hours later I met her. When she saw me coming, she looked up at me, her face aglow, her eyes dancing. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘Mr. Torrey, have you heard?’ I said, ‘Yes, Jack (by the way that indicates her character that a young lady should have been called ‘Jack’.) I have heard.’ And do you know, she fairly danced on the sidewalk—the first time I had ever known in my life what it meant to dance before the Lord. The girl literally danced, she couldn’t help her self—she couldn’t have kept still if she had tried. There was nothing unbecoming about it. She just looked up in my face. ‘Oh!’ she said, ‘and Mr. Torrey, it is so wonderful—the Bible is a new book. Why,’ she said, ‘I didn’t believe the Bible. I did believe in the divinity of Christ, but I didn’t believe the Bible; it was just the stupidest book I ever read. But now GocT is showing me the most wonderful things every day from His own precious Word.’ ” Life Story of Mr. Jacoby. During the next few weeks, Dr. Torrey and Mr. Alexander will be assisted in the revival movement by Rev. Wm. S. Jacoby, assistant pastor of Moody Church, Chicago, whom Dr. Torrey calls ‘the best loved man in Chicago.’ Like Mr. Trotter, Mr. Ja coby was once a drunkard and a criminal; today he is a miracle of grace, and is filled with the Holy Spirit. Following Dr. Torrey’s address on the Holy Spirit on Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Ja coby told the story of his transformation, and it proved a fitting climax to the stirring service. The people listened with hushed attention to the big six-foot westerner, and many were in tears as he related his life story. He said in part: “I used to be a police officer here. My beats were first Sixth and Chestnut, then Eighth and Chestnut; and finally Broad and Chestnut streets I was an awfully wicked man. I hope you have better men now on the force. I thank God He can save a policeman as well as anybody else. The sergeant often found me around an alley some where in a saloon. I had a friend with a pull, w r ho had me reinstated a number of times; but finally the mayor said he would not take me back again if I were his own brother.” Turning After Forty-Five Years. The speaker went on to trace his wanderings from his home to the west, always being in trouble or jail, from his desperate character. He was finally converted in a little town in lowa. “It was short ly after the town authorities had decided to out law me,” he said. “I found myself down on my knees at the altar of a little Methodist meeting. The people around where I was kneeling kept ask ing me if I didn’t feel different. I told them I didn’t feel anything at all. I expected from what they said that I had to wait until a galvanic shock of some sort struck me. I went up to the altar six or seven nights, ‘waiting for the feeling,’ but it wouldn’t come. But I had made up my mind to be a Christian, and they decided to put me on probation. Without any feeling, without knowing that I was saved even, I went about giving my testimony. I simply said, ‘I have served the devil forty-five years. I am going to serve Jesus the balance of my life.’ I had made up my mind that the ‘feeling’ was for good people, and that a man who had been as great a rascal as I had been couldn’t expect to have it. “One day a Methodist preacher told me I could be sure I was saved, because the Bible said I was if I accepted Christ. Then he said, ‘Pray for the power of the Holy Ghost.’ I did, and I received the consciousness of* the baptism with the Holy Ghost. Finally, I found myself shaking. We were all soon laughing, crying, dancing, and shouting for joy. Then 1 knew what it was to have feeling. The people in that lowa I own later asked me to run for mayor on both tickets.” The Greatest Sunday School in America. Rev. William Patterson, pastor of Bethany Pres byterian Church, told me of the practical effect of the movement upon his congregation. His church is a typical one, with a membership of over 3,500, and an enrollment of 5,400 in the Sunday school and its branches/ It is the largest Presbyterian church in the United States, and has the largest Sunday school in America. Dr. Patterson said: “The movement has roused up a great deal of enthusiasm, especially among the men of our broth erhood, and also among the younger element of the congregation. This was made very manifest on last Friday night, when Mr. Alexander conducted the service in the new building in West Philadel phia. About 2.000 were in the building, and many hundreds were turned away. It was also manifest ed in the Sunday morning service in Bethany Church, also conducted by Mr. Alexander, when about 3,000 people listened to and were intensely moved by the whole service. And the power of these meetings has shown itself in our ordinary week night services and Sunday services. People are talking about these things, and as a result of the mission a new prayer meeting has been started on Saturday evenings. Then several cottage pray er meetings have been started by the congregation, and conversions are being recorded at almost every one of these meetings. The fire is burning, and the results will become even more manifest at our next communion. Bethany and the branches in connec tion with the church have been wonderfully revived and quickened through the mission in Philadelphia, and we all believe that this is only the beginning of what is to be, We are looking for and expect greater thing! yet from the miiibn*” 7