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Close of the Northfield Conference
'Results of the Notable Gathering and 'Extracts from Some of the Addresses.
By GEORGE T. B. DAVIS.
FTER seventeen days packed full of
inspiring addresses from the foremost
Christian leaders of America and Eng
land, the Northfield Conference has
closed, and the thousands in attendance
upon the gathering have gone back to
their homes, filled with a new love for
God’s Word and a new zeal for soul
winning. Mr. W. R. Moody declared
A
at the final service that the conference was the
deepest and best that had been held under his di
rection. It was also the largest conference in che
histojy of Northfield, fully five thousand visitors
having been in attendance.
A notable feature of the conference was that it
was an evangelistic as well as a Bible gathering and
nearly or quite a hundred persons confessed Christ
during the sessions. At a single evangelistic meet
ing, held the second Sunday evening of the assem
bly, thirty-eight persons came down to the front
and publicly confessed Christ before the great
gathering. Many others were led to Christ in the
auditorium and throughout the grounds all during
the conference period.
The keynotes of the conference were the exposi
tion of the Bible aid personal work. Di. G.
Campbell Morgan gave luminous expositions of
Romans each day, and Mr. Charles M. Alexander,
the singing evangelist, in his daily hour of praise,
constantly urged the duty and joy of soul winning
by means of advice, touching incidents and gos
pel songs.
Many came to the conference especially to get
help in personal work, and went away filled with
the determination to engage in it as never before.
Doubtless thousands will be led to Christ as the re
sult cf influences started during the conference.
It is not my purpose in this article to give
detailed description of the conference, but s o pass
on to my readers a few gems of thought from the
conference addresses. As it was a Bible conference,
I want, first, to give a few trenchant w 7 ords from
Prof. Orr’s address on the stability of the Bible
in the light of recent archeological discoveries.
Professor Orr said that one of the most re
markable things in the past century and up to the
present date, had been the amazing light thrown
upon the most ancient civilizations, and the corrob
oration which these brought to holy Scripture, and
especially to the oldest parts of it. The results
of these discoveries have effected nothing less than
a revolution in their whole way of conceiving ol
such eirly civilizations as those of Egypt, Baby
lonia and Assyria, and had wrought a revolution
also in their way of conceiving of the Israelites
and their early history. Instead of the people of
Israel being regarded as belonging to the dim past
of tradition and the very dawn of civilization, they
were now seen to be a people who had millenniums
of civilization behind them, and on whom, in sonic
sense, the ends of Ihe world had come.
The very earliest important discovery in Assyria,
the middle of the last century, was a surprise <
a forecast of what was to follow. It was the dis
covery of the palace of the great Sargon, the
father of Sennacherib, who is mentioned in only
one place in the Bible, or in all literature, namely,
in Isaiah 20: 1. Sargon’s palace was disinterred
with his name c.n it, his portrait, his sculptures and
his annals, giving an account of the very siege of
Ashdod to which Isaiah referred. Layard, who
came after, disinterred the palace of Sennacherib,
rebuilt by his son Assur-banipal, who had farmed
a great library, the remains of which were found
in the ruins. Through successive discoveries the
age of the civilizations in Babylonia and in Egyp'
has been carried back long millenniums before Moses
and Abraham.
Professor Orr showed that one of the results
of these discoveries was to demonstrate that Baby
lonia was the center from which had gone out all the
great streams of ancient civilization, in accordance
with what was narrated in Genesis 11. He illus-
The Golden Age for September 5, 1907.
trated the accuracy of the Bible statements in re
gard to ancient peoples and countries in Genesis
10, instancing, among others, the case of Elam,
which recent excavation has proved to be Semitic
in origin, in contradiction to previous. belief, but
in harmmiy with the statement in Genesis. 1
view of all that had been discovered, Professor Orr
declared we have no reason to fear that the ola
Bible is being blown to pieces.
Few speakers at the conference made a deeper
impression of spirituality upon the audience than
the Rev. Stuart Holden, of London. He is a new
voice in this country, but one which we believe will
be heard with increasing influence during succeeding
years. He is a Spirit-filled man, and his teaching
centers largely upon the Holy Spirit and His work
in the world today. He said in the course of one
strong address:
“In the teaching of Christ think of the promi
nence which He gave to the gift of the Spirit.
Read, again, from chapters fourteen to seventeen,
in the gospel of St. John, and see the emphasis
and stress which the Lord Jesus laid upon this
fact, that upon His departure the Holy Spirit
should come, not an influence, but a person. Ana
we see in the Acts and in the Epistles of the
New Testament the prominence also given to the
person and work of the Holy Spirit. If you read
in the Acts of the Apostles you will find that all
the power for service is in the Holy Spirit. ‘Ye
shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is
come upon you.’ It is the Holy Ghost who con
trols those who yield themselves to the lordshq
of Christ in His service.
“I go into prayer meetings occasionally and hear
people talking about the Holy Spirit as ‘lt,’ as
though the Holy Spirit were nothing more than
an influence. Never do that again. He is a real,
living, loving person.
“I do not know in the Word of God -I certainly
do not know in my own experience—any once-foi
all fulness of the Spirit. I do not know of anj
crisis or experience, either in the Word of Gou
or in my own experience or the experiences of th
people cf God, any once-for-all reception of the
Holy Spirit which is going to carry me through
to Ihe end of life. But there must be a continuous
reception, there must be a continual infilling of the
Holy Spirit to answer to the daily and hourly re
curring needs of my life; and hence the command
in Ephesians 5: 18, is, ‘Be ye filled.’
“And to those who understand the Greek of the
New’ Testament, you know 7 that that is a call, not
to an act, but to an attitude, which is best trans
lated in a somewhat round-about and stilted Eng
lish style: ‘Be ye in the attitude of being filled
with the Spirit.’ That is the force of the Greek
tense there: ‘Be ye being filled with the Spirit.’
And just as moment by moment I draw in through
the air that which is necessary for the sustainin'
of physical life, so moment by moment I can draw
upon the great Spirit of God to meet every need
as it arises in my life, not only the great dp
but the small needs, too. And so, beloved, holiness
will become for every one of us an indubitable
reality. And those round about us shall see in each
of us, not a sanctified man, but shall see Christ
in us; shall see not a wonderful man, but a wonder
ful Christ, controlling, possessing and living out
His life again in us and through us.”
Throughout the conference Mr. Charles M. Alex
ander’s hour of praise proved one of the most
popular and helpful gatherings of the period. Each
day much prayer and testimony was intermingled
with the gospel songs, and the most melting times
of the conference occurred at this hour. A num
ber of new songs were introduced by the gospel
singer, one of the most popular being one w’ ;
has not yet appeared in any book, entitled: “Can
the Lord Depend on You?” The music was writ
ten recently by Mr. Robert Harkness. It was
hummed and sung all over the conference grounds.
The chorus runs as follows:
“Can the Lord depend on you?
Can the Lord depend on you?
Does He find you ever true?
Can the Lord depend on you ?’ ’
Near the close of the conference Mr. Alexander
gave a stirring talk on soul-winning in which he
told his hearers to do personal work as never be
fore. He said, in part:
“I just found a man out there, a nice-looking
man, with a strong face and a fine education, who
said to me: ‘I have been the pastor of a church
for fourteen years, where I have 800 members, but
this personal work is what I haven’t had. I am
weak there.’ The other night a young preacher
said to me: ‘Last Sunday night, after my wife
and I watched the souls being led to Christ here
by personal workers, we cried all the way home.
We settled it on our knees that we were going to
do personal work. I have been preaching for two
years, but that has been my weak spot.’ It is the
weakest spot you can have. You needn’t sympa
thize with yourself, and gloss it over.
“You will find a strength, joy and peace in your
life that you never knew before if you will do
personal work. You say, ‘I am sixty-five years old!’
That doesn’t make any difference. One of the
best workers I know is eighty-four years old. She
cannot walk very well, either, and has to be helped
out of the door, but you know she never loses an
opportunity.
“Have you ever led a soul to Christ in your
life? Do you know of anybody you have led to
Christ? What if you dropped dead in your seat
right where you are? What could you say to God?
Would you begin to make the excuses you have
been making to yourself? The Lord said: ‘Fol
low me and I will make you fishers of men.’ Are
you fishing? What would you think of a fisher
man Who had fished all his life and caught noth
ing? You would think he ought to be in the asylum.
But if it takes a long time to get the one you want,
don’t be discouraged. Keep after him. I got a
letter from my wife yesterday. She told me about
finding a woman that she and her mother had been
after —I don’t know how many years. She would
go and get drunk and everything like that, but they
kept after her that much harder. Let’s go after
them and get them, no matter how long it takes.
How long would you hunt for your son if you had
lost him? If your little child was lost here on tin
grounds, how long would you look for it, mother?
(Voice from crowd-: ‘Until she found it!’) That’s
right, of course you would. How long must you
keep after an unsaved soul? Until you land them.
That is what I liked about Sam Hadley. It didn’t
matter how often a man went off and got drunk,
nor if he stole everything he could lay his hands
on, when that man came back Sam would say:
‘How do you do; glad to see you back.’ ”
“An intelligent looking dog,” said a visitor from
Boston, as reported by the New Y’ork Evening Sun.
“Oh, he is,” exclaimed Fido’s owner. “He knows
every word you say.”
Then said the visitor from Boston:
“My canine friend, I am exceedingly interested
in the hypothesis that has been presented to me to
the effect that your understanding of human speech
is perfect, and in order to test this matter I wish
that you would be good enough to bark three times
in rapid succession as an indication that your com
prehension of my request is in all ways clear and
lucid.”
“And did he bark?” said I to Teagarden, who
was telling me the story.
“No,” said Teagarden, “but he growled like—”
Let us take care, how we speak to those who have
fallen in life’s field. Help them up, not heap scorn
upon them. We did not see the conflict We do
not know the scars.
