The Golden age. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1906-1915, July 05, 1906, Page 7, Image 7

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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- 7