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REVIVAL MOVES SOUTHERN CITY
Norfolk, Virginia, Aroused by Chapman-Alexander Mission —Double Crime Crime Prebented on Opening Night
ORFOLK, Virginia, a city of 70,000 in
habitants, where the Jamestown Expo
sition was recently held, is being deeply
moved by the Chapman-Alexander meet
ings. There was large preparation of
prayer; the ministers were united as one
man; and victory was assured from the
beginning. The city has been divided
into four districts in which simultaneous
N
services are held nightly. In the central district
the meetings of Dr. Chapman and Mr. Alexander
are held in a big armory hall, seating about 3,000
people. Dr. Chapman’s daughter, Miss Bertha
Chapman, and Mr. E. W. Naftsger are the soloists,
while Mr. Robert Harkness is the accompanist.
In the other sections the meetings are held in
churches by the following evangelists and singers:
Dr. Frank Granstaff and 0. F. Pugh; Dr. Daniel S.
Toy and Frank Dickson; and Dr. Ora S. Gray and
Charles F. Allen and Charles H. Marsh. Special
childrens’ services are conducted by Rev. C. T.
Schaeffer and W. H. Collison, while Mr. and Mrs.
William Asher hold meetings, as in other cities, in
saloons and similar resorts, sorely in need of the
Gospel message.
At the very first meeting in Norfolk an incident
occurred which thrilled the city, and which Dr.
Chapman declares is the most remarkable in his en
tire career as an evangelist. In beginning his ser
mon Dr. Chapman announced that he was going to
preach from a text which had been ringing in his
ears all day. He had tried to escape from it and
could not. It was found in John 6: 68: “Lord, to
whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal
life.”
Sitting in the audience that evening was a man
who was about to commit murder and suicide. The
text pierced his soul, and kept him from his awful
crimes. The next morning he sought out Dr. Chap
man and made full confession. Dr. Chapman gave
me the following account of this striking first-fruits
of the revival:
“The first morning of our meetings in Norfolk,
a well dressed young man met me in the hotel and
said: ‘May I speak to you a moment?’ When T
said, ‘Yes, sir,’ he said: ‘I must see you alone.’
Taking him over into a secluded corner he burst
into tears and said: ‘I heard you preach last night
and you have saved me from an awful crime, and 1
want to give you something. ’ He said that he and
his young wife were not residents of Norfolk, but
that they were strangers in the city. They had
been disappointed in finances and had been reduced
to the last penny. Their unpaid hotel bill was star
ing them in the face. ‘I am a graduate of a school
of technology,’ he said, ‘and also of music, but I
have been able to find nothing. We are ofi the
verge of starvation and I had become so depressed
that I had made up my mind last night to kill my
wife and then to end my own life! But, sir,’ said
he, ‘my wife had asked me to go to your service,
and I went thinking only that it would occupy my
time. Your text, “Lord to whom shall we go?”
went through me like a knife. I saw my sin and
myself. I cried all the night, and I hope that I
have given myself to God. At least 1 know that I
am not a murderer, and now will you take this?’
He drew from his pocket the revolver which would
have ended the lives of the two. Bursting
into tears he said, ‘Pray for me, do pray for me,
for God helping me from today I shall lead a Chris
tian life.’ Since talking with him I have every
reason to believe that his conversion is genuine.
It was the text of Scripture that did it, and such
is the power of a single verse of God’s Word.”
Last Sunday such scenes occurred as had probably
never before been witnessed in Norfolk. In the
afternoon nearly three thousand men gathered in
the armory to hear the Gospel, yvhile several other
meetings were held in various setions of the city.
Although it was a hot day, Mr. Alexander soon
had the men singing lustily the revival melodies.
The Golden Age for May 7, 1908.
By GEORGE T. B. DAVIS
Especially did the men ring out the song, “My
Savior’s Love,” written by the author of the
“Glory Song.” Before they sang the second verse
where those touching lines occur,
“He had no tears for his own griefs,
But sweat drops of blood for mine,”
♦
Mr. Alexander told the following story of Christ’s
suffering for us:
“When I was in Australia last year a lady told
mfe a story of the transformation of a bad boy. He
broke up every class he got into by his bad behavior
and was passed around from one class to another
until every teacher in the school had tried him. At
a meeting of the teachers it was decided that he
would have to go or he would break up the school.
The day he Was to be told to go a man who had
visited the Holy Land was asked to make a five-min
ute talk, at the close of the school. This man had
brought back several curiosities and in his talk he
showed them a crown of thorns such as was sup
posed to have been placed on the brow of the Sa
vior. He described how it was placed on his brow
and beaten down until his face was scarred more
than the face of any other man, and he described
his sufferings.
At the dose of the talk the bad boy in the back
of the room began to wriggle up through the
crowd and the tough boys fell in behind him wink
ing at each other and watching to see what new mis
chief he would make. He came up to the man who
made the talk and said, ‘Mister, might I see them
there thorns what you showed us?’ He said, ‘Yes,
there they are in that box; help yourself.’ With
that the boys all crowded up close to him to see
the fun, but the tough boy was as solemn as if he
had been to a funeral, as he examined the crown of
thorns, and solemnly touched the points with his
fingers, and, talking to himself, said: ‘lt must have
hurt him awful. Oh, it must have hurt him awful!’
From that day he was a changed boy. He had ob
tained a glimpse of how Jesus suffered for him. He
could be placed in any class in the school.”
The story gripped the audience and they sang
with new feeling and tenderness the rest of the
hymns, thus preparing the way for the message and
the victory which followed.
The subject of Dr. Chapman’s sermon was “A
Terrific Whirlwind.” The men were deeply moved
as he graphically pictured the small beginnings of
sin, and its terrible ravages at the end. When
he concluded hundreds raised their hand for prayer,
while a good number definitely accepted Christ.
On Sunday evening the big armory was packed,
while there were three overflow meetings in addi
tion to the three simultaneous meetings in other
parts of Norfolk. Sitting in the front of the
audience were 130 apprenticed seamen from the
St. Helena Training Station at Norfolk. Dressed
in their blue jackets, with white stripes on their
collars, they made a striking appearance. During
the song service Mr. Alexander called upon them
to rise aird sing together the new chorus, written
by Robert Harkness, “Can thte Lord Depend on
you?” The audience cheered lustily as they stood
up and sang it heartily.
Can the Lord depend on you?”
Can the Lord depend on you?
Does He find you ever true?
Can the Lord depend on you.”
At the conclusion of Dr. Chapman’s strong
sermon on “The Judgment,” the most beautiful
scene of the mission thus far occurred. As he stood
in front of the great audience appealing for those
who wished special prayer to come forward, a line
of a score of the apprenticed seamen went forward
and filed up to grasp the evangelist by the hand.
A loving word was given to each. At the end of
the meeting it was found that fifteen of the blue
jackets had come out definitely for Christ; while
fourteen others stated they were members of
churches elsewhere, but would join some Norfolk
church. No one can estimate the influence of that
meeting as the men go throughout the world in
the United States Navy witnessing for Christ.
As a direct outcome of the Philadelphia mission
just concluded, a plan has been proposed which, if
carried out, will mean the largest and most far
reaching evangelistic effort in this generation. Dr.
William H. Roberts, Moderator of the Presbyterian
Church, after witnessing the results of the Phila
delphia work, proposes a world-wide revival move
ment under the direction of Dr. Chapman and Mr.
Alexander. He says that he is convinced that many
denominations will unite in a great campaign which
will encircle the earth.
Dr. Robert’s word carries especial weight for
he is Secretary of the Executive Committee of the
Interstate Council of American Protestant churches,
representing 18,000,000 people; and also Secretary
of the Pan-Presbyterian Alliance, which binds to
gether all Presbyterian churches throughout the
world, and has a constituency of 40,000,000.
Dr. Roberts states that the subject will be
brought before various denominational bodies in
the near future, including a notable gathering in
Philadelphia next December, when 26 denomina
tions will be in conferance.
If the purposed plans are indorsed by the various
denominations it will mean a forward movement
in evangelism during the next few years in which
the entire church will be quickened to new life,
and tens of thousands swept into the Kingdom.
Among the Workers.
We are in the world to be used, not to be saved
from use. Such a saving would be dead loss. Every
one of us is interested, or ought to be, in using our
powers to the best possible advantage. There is,
perhaps, some danger of overwork —this is called
“burning the candle at both ends.” But there is
still greater danger of under-work. The man who
is afraid to use himself up is in that danger. We
are here to be used up; we must not forget that.
To do anything worth doing costs vitality. As
John R. Mott said the other day, speaking at the
Young People’s Missionary Convention in Pitts
burg on “The Consecration Adequate to Victory”:
“We are to be careful of our health, yet not too
careful. I do not forget that while we should nr t
burn the candle at both ends, the candle melts away
if it gives out light.” The undiminished candle
makes .a pretty ornament where no light is needed,
and that is all. It has got to grow less when it
really gets down to business. So must we. No
healthy person has any right not to feel used up
when bedtime comes. —Sunday School Times.
*
The message of President Roosevelt to Congress
on the 27th of April about legislation to control the
trusts is one ot the best he has written. Among the
sharp things, he says this:
“The man who preaches hatred of wealth hon
estly acquired, who inculcates envy and jealousy and
slanderous ill will toward those of his fellows who
by their effort, energy and industry have become
men of means is a menace to the community.
“But his counterpart in evil is to be found in
that particular kind of multi-millionaire who is al
most the least enviable and is certainly one of the
least admirable of all our citizens, a man of whom
it has been well said that his face has grown hard
and cruel while his body has grown soft, whose son
is a fool and his daughter a foreign princess, whose
nominal pleasures are at best those of a tasteless
and extravagant luxury, and whose real delight,
whose real life work, is the accumulation and use of
power in its most sordid and least elevating form.”
1 he propriety of employing an executive message
to delrv er an ethreal lecture may be an open ques
tion, but there is no doubt about the ethical value of
this last message of our president.
