The Golden age. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1906-1915, July 05, 1906, Page 7, Image 7
A RED LETTER DAT AT OTTA WA
How a Successful Business Man Has Become a Soul Winner. —The Story of the Indian Choir
Organizer.—Progress of Work in Other Cities.
By GEORGE T. B. DAVIS.
AST Sunday was the red-letter day of
the Ottawa campaign thus far. At
the afternoon and evening services not
less than 14,000 people were in attend
ance, and over 300 converts were record
ed. The afternoon meeting was for
boys and girls, and was the largest
gathering the evangelists have had in
America. Nearly 8,000 people, young
L
and old, were present, the great structure being
closely packed, with hundreds standing and sitting
upon the steps leading to the choir platform. The
musical part of the service was especially inspiring,
Mr. Alexander having under his direction three
choirs—the regular Ottawa choir, the “Sunbeam
Chorus,” and nearly 100 members of his former To
ronto choir.
Excursion rates continue to bring many hundreds
to Ottawa to attend the meetings. Yesterday nearly
a thousand excursionists were in attendance at the
meetings. In a recent sermon to an audience in
which were a large number of revival excursionists
Dr. Torrey told them that the key to a revival in
their church, and to the conversion of the world
lay in personal work. He said:
“The most important kind of work in the world
is personal work. It is far more important than
preaching. It is far more important than singing.
It is the most important work there is in the church
of Jesus Christ to-day. The only hope that there
is for the evangelization of the world is in personal,
hand-to-hand work.
“The world will never be evangelized by preach
ing; the world will never be evangelized by mission
aries. The world will never be evangelized until
the church of Christ wakes up and every man and
woman in it goes to be a soul winner. Then it will
be evangelized inside of five years.
“I thank God that just as I finished my theologi
cal course at Yale, Mr. Moody came to New Haven
and held meetings for six weeks. It made me a per
sonal worker, and I have been a personal worker
from that day to this, with the result that I have
had a perpetual revival in my churches. I have
had four different churches, and I have been in a
continuous revival since the end of my first year in
the ministry till this day. How? Personal work.
Personal work is the key to the entire situation.
You can do it. Will you do it?”
A prominent business man of Philadelphia has
come 500 miles to assist Dr. Torrey and Mr. Alex
ander during the last ten days of their camnaivn.
He is Mr. H. Wellington Wood, manager of the
Philadelphia branch of the 11. J. Heinz Company,
and a member of the firm. During the Philadelphia
campaign of the evangelists, Mr. Wood was set on
fire with a passion for soul winning, and before the
movement concluded had led 35 persons to Christ
by personal work.
Converted to Personal Work.
Mr. Wood is a deacon in an aristocratic Philadel
phia Presbyterian church. When he first attended
the Torrey-Alexander meetings in his city, he oc
cupied a seat on the platform dressed in a Prince
Albert coat, with his silk hat beside him, altogethei'
too dignified a figure to go down into the audience
and plead with sinners to accept Jesus Christ. Mr.
Alexander noticed him, and urged him to do person
al work. He went down, and that night led a man
and his wife to give their hearts to God. From
that hour his Christian life was transformed. He
went to doing personal work at all hours of the day
and night, and in all places. He is now one of the
leaders of the revival bands of business men in
Philadelphia, and since the evangelists left the city
has been speaking almost every night, and several
times on Sundays in churches all over Philadelphia.
Yesterday afternoon, within a few hours after
The Golden Age for July 5, 1906.
his arrival in Ottawa, Mr. Alexander called upon
Mr. Wood to tell the audience the story of how
his life was transformed. The people were deeply
moved by the business man’s thrilling narrative of
his experiences in soul winning. In speaking of how
he led five people to Christ on a recent Sunday, Mr.
Wood said:
A Family Converted.
“A mother came to me and said, ‘Won’t you come
down to our house; I have a son I want to see saved,
and I know you could do him good?’ I said I would,
and last Sunday I called at their home. The mother
took me into the parlor, and there sat the father
and a son, but not the son she wanted me to talk
to. I had very little time, so I opened fire at once.
I said to the father, ‘Don’t you know that your
children are watching your example closely?’ He
said, ‘I do.’ I said, ‘Don’t you think it is pretty
nearly time you took Jesus Christ into this home
and so make it the happiest home in the world?’
‘Yes,’ he said; ‘pretty nearly time.’ ‘Won’t you
do it now?’ ‘Yes, I will.’ I turned around to the
son, and he said, ‘Yes, if my father is going to do
it, I’ll do it, too.’ See what the father’s influence
did for the son. I said, ‘Let’s get down and tell
God.’ We got down, and both of them sobbed bit
terly, and asked God to forgive them their sins.
As we were praying the door opened and in came
the son I had called to see. I turned to him and
said, ‘John, your father and brother have just
taken Christ, and this is going to be the happiest
home you ever knew. You have lived for the devil
long enough; won’t you quit sin and live for the
Lord Jesus Christ?’ He said, ‘Mr. Wood, God
helping me, I will. I have been waiting for some
one to speak to me about this for a long time.’
He knelt down and gave his heart to God, and thus
the whole family came to Christ.
“A young lady came to me and asked me to
speak to her cousin who was to be in our meeting
that same Sunday night. I looked down in the
audience and picked out the young man, a well-to
do young fellow, and before the benediction was
pronounced I slipped down and sat in a chair back
of him, and after some conversation, he said he
would accept Christ. His wife, who was a Chris
tian, and had been praying for him, and he and
1 knelt down before the people in that Presbyterian
church, and he gave his heart to the Txird Jesus.
“When we got up, his tall, dignified father came
( ver to where we were and said in his most pompous
L'ues, ‘John, I certainly want to congratulate you;
this is a noble act of yours, indeed it is; and Mr.
Wood, I want to thank you very sincerely.’ I
thought that perhaps the old gentleman needed talk
ing to about his soul as well as the son. I said,
‘Pardon me, Mr. W—, but I want to be very frank
with you. Are you a Christian?’ He said, ‘No,
I don’t think I am.’ I said, ‘You said it was a
noble thing for your son to accept Christ; wouldn’t
it be good for you, too? You know Christ died to
save you?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Are you ashamed of him?’
‘No.’ ‘Then, why not accept him and confess him
right here?’ He said. ‘I will.’ And together we
knelt down and he accepted Christ as his Savior.”
All the Household Singing.
Continuing, Mr. Wood said, “There are four in
our family. My little girl, as she goes off to school,
sings, ‘Go home and tell.’ The old colored mammy
goes off and sings, ‘Grace enough for me.’ My wife
sings, ‘Go home and tell.’ The old colored mammy
in the kitchen sings, ‘I sings because I’se happy.’
And our old mongrel dog comes and sits up in a
chair with such a look in his face that if he could
he’d sing, ‘O, what a change’’ ”
Mr. Wood has now led a total of 62 persons to
Christ by personal work, and the number is constant-
ly growing. The last one was the porter on the
train as he came up from Philadelphia to Ottawa.
The Indian Choir Leader.
The man who trained the two choirs in Ottawa—
the regular choir and the ‘Sunbeam Chorus’—is
one of the most interesting figures in connection
with the work here. He is Charles H. Cooke, an
Iroquois Indian. He is from a red man’s settlement
in the north of Canada, where his father is an In
dian missionary. For several years he has been
living in Ottawa, where he is director of a choir in
a Presbyterian church. Mr. Cooke is not only an
expert musician, but is a man of executive ability,
having handled the choir arrangements in a most
efficient manner. When I asked Mr. Cooke to tell
me something of his early life, and how he came to
live in Ottawa, he said:
“I was born in 1870, down the Ottawa river, at
Oka, which is an Algonquin Indian word, meaning
‘pickerel.’ My people were all Roman Catholics,
but just about the time I was born a general con
version of nearly all the Indians in the reservation
occurred. They turned Protestants, and became
Methodists. It came about through one of the
priests who had been educated for the priesthood,
finding a Bible. He kept studying it in secret, and
found it taught something very different from what
he had learned. He left the church, and persuaded
his friends to renounce Roman Catholicism and fol
low the teachings of the Book. I was the first to
be baptized in the Protestant church.
“Then a persecution began, and the Indians had
to leave and go to Muskoka, Northern Ontario. At
about 16 years of age I was converted through the
preaching of my father, a native missionary to
the Indians. I remember that he would urge me,
being his only son, to become a Christian that be
might the better urge other young men to become
Christians. The result was that I was never happy
until I gave my heart to Christ.
“Later I went to college and became interested
in music. While there I was leader of the glee
club. I came to Ottawa in 1893, entered a church
choir, and now I am director of the choir at Stew
arton Presbyterian church.”
Echoes From Former Work.
Good news continues to come in from the cities
where the evangelists have held missions. Yesterday
afternoon Mr. Alexander read a remarkable letter
from a pastor of a Toronto church who, s nee the
campaign there, has received 260 new members. He
wrote:
“We have received over 260 new members since
you went away—considerably more than 200 of
them on profession of faith. At our anniversary
service in May, these new members subscribed be
tween $2,000 and $3,000 towards the liquidation of
our debt, besides all their other gifts for running
expenses and foreign missions. We have been car
rying on an open-air campaign, and working on the
street-cars as well as in the church. May God bless
you in thousands of souls for Jesus.”
In Philadelphia the revival bands have conducted
echo meetings in over thirty different churches, mis
sions and halls. Mr. J. 11. Mcßride, the converted
real estate man, writes that the work is going for
ward gloriously. In speaking of the revival bands
in a letter just received, he says:
“In each case there have been from ten to twenty
“We have had a number of conversions in the
rooms at the Hale Building. Only a few days ago
a civil engineer who had been leading a most intem
perate life, was most beautifully converted. His
father is an Episcopal clergyman, and his uncle,
Bishop of Oregon. At the rooms no wwe have a
half-hour prayer meeting every day, except Saturday
and Sunday, and when a man gets in who is uncon
verted he rarely gets out without finding his Master-
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