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A Great A Ivakening in Vermont
Dr. Chapman and Nr. Alexander and Their Associates Start Wabe of Rebibal Throughout the Northern Part of State
The Great Work in Burglmgton.
"By George T. B. Dabis.
HE first part of the Chapman-Alexander
mission, covering the northern part of
the State of Vermont, has just con
cluded with victory everywhere. The
towns and cities have been deeply stirred
during the past two weeks; thousands
have heard the Gospel night after night;
large numbers in each city have turned
to the Lord; and the churches have been
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quickened as they rarely, if ever, have been before
in their history. The evangelists worked on the
same general plan as in Philadelphia last spring;
only they covered the various cities of the State,
instead of the different sections of a great city. A
corps of over twenty evangelists and Gospel singers
conducted the campaign in the towns and cities of
Northern Vermont. The work in one city helped
that in another, and thus a revival atmosphere was
created in all that section of the State.
This unique method of preaching to crowds night
ly in the larger places of the State has been found
to result in a revival wave which sweeps over even
the smallest towns and hamlets, as the newspapers
carry everywhere the news of the awakenings.
“What Must I do to be Saved?’’
The following is an excellent example of this.
Yesterday, while traveling through Vermont from
one point to another where the meetings are in
progress, I found people on the railway trains eager
ly discussing the work; traveling men were en
thusiastic about it; and I had the privilege of lead
ing a young man to 'Christ on the train, who lived
in the country five miles from a town where no
meetings were in progress. He had read, however,
of the awakening, in the press, and seemed just wait
ing to accept Christ as his Savior. That same morn
ing when I began my railway journey at 4:30 a. m.,
the station agent, learning of my connection with
the movement while selling me a ticket, called me
into his office, quickly told me of his life of sin, and
asked if there were any way of escape. It was
simply another instance of how men of all callings,
in city and country, are asking, “What must I do
to be saved?”
Dr. Chapman is so enthusiastic over the success
of the State-wide plan that he expects frequently in
the future to go with Dr. Alexander into some great
city where large tabernacle meetings will be held;
and then have other evangelists in the surrounding
cities and towns, so that the entire section of the
country may be simultaneously aroused with revival
interest.
Vermont Campaign.
During the first two weeks of the Vermont cam
paign the headquarters of the movement were at
Burlington, where the party of evangelists includ
ed Dr. J. Wilbur Chapman, Mr. and Mrs. Charles H.
Alexander, Mr. Robert Harkness, Mr. Ernest W.
Naftsger, Mr. and Mrs. William Asher, Mr. and
Mrs. Ralph C. Horton, and Mr. E. G. Chapman, who
conducted the business part of the work. Other
evangelists and singers were located as follows: In
Montpelier, Rev. Frank Granstaff, D. D., and Mr.
0. F. Pugh; in Barre, Rev. Daniel S. Toy, and Mr.
Frank Dickson; in Middlebury, Rev. Ora Samuel
Gray and Mr. Charles P. Allen; in Vergennes, Rev.
Thos. Needham and Mr. J. W. Reynolds; in New
port, Rev. C. F. Schaeffer and Mr. W. H. Collisson;
in Barton, Rev. J. 0. Burwell and Mr. W. W.
Weaver; in Barton Landing, Rev. A. B. Davidson;
in Essex Junction, Rev. E. B. Robinson and Prof. J.
J. Lowe; in Woodstock, Rev. H. H. Liggett.
The meetings conducted in Burlington by Dr.
Chapman and Mr. Alexander stirred the city as it
has not been moved for thirty years; since the
mission held there by D. L. Moody. The chairman
of the local committee was the well-known Christian
The Golden Age for December 10, 1008.
leader, Major General 0. 0. Howard. Night after
night glorious scenes were witnessed in the Armory,
where the meetings were held. Under the influence
of the revival songs and the powerful preaching of
Dr. Chapman, combined with the presence of God’s
Spirit, the audiences were again and again melted
to tears, and all hearts were stirred as many went
forward to the front to confess Christ or to renew
their broken vows.
Never Preached With Such Fire and Fervor.
Those who have long known Dr. Chapman say he
has never preached with such fire and fervor as at
the present. His sermons are plain and Scriptural,
but they are delivered with a white-hot earnestness
such as Whitefield must have possessed, and are so
saturated with love and sympathy that the audiences
are deeply moved and affected as they listen to them.
Men and women of all grades of society were
transformed by the awakening. Not only were large
numbers saved, but the whole spirit of the Christian
community was changed. One of the pastors re
marked that he had work enough planned out to
keep him busy until next August. The church mem
bers were led to see that soul winning is their
business, not only during revival meetings, but all
the year round.
Carry Their Testaments With Them.
As in other places recently visited by Dr. Chap
man and Mr. Alexander, one of the most striking
results of the work was the increased reading and
studying of the Bible. Those who cared little for
reading the Bible are now finding it full of fasci
nating interest. I heard this morning of a prominent
woman whose life had been devoted to the pursuit
of worldly amusements. She has now given them
up entirely, and is so enthused with the study of
God’s Word that she says she wants to have a Testa
ment with her constantly. The lowest, as well as
the highest, have become eager Bible students. Dur
ing the meetings two of the five inmates of a home
for girls of the street accepted Christ. All of them
were presented with Testaments, and a few days
later the matron said that they were spending hour
after hour reading the books. One of them read
the entire Gospel of Luke in a single day; and an
other read seventeen chapters in one day.
Large numbers of men and women, as well as
boys and girls, entered heartily into the plan of car
rying about with them, as well as reading, God’s
Word. Testaments and Bibles that had scarcely
been used for years have been discovered in the
homes and are now being carried about by men,
women and children. One of the leading men in
Burlington said this morning, with reference to car
rying a Testament or Bible in one’s pocket: “I have
been counting up and find that a man has fifteen
pockets. Surely he can give one of these to the
Lord. ”
Gospel Hymns Proved Effective.
Mr. Alexander’s Gospel hymns proved as effective
in reaching the people in New England as in other
parts of the country. The throngs at the Armory
seemed never to tire of singing them under his in
spiring leadership. One striking feature of the
State-wide campaign was the fact that the same
Gospel songs were being used in all the cities where
evangelists were conducting meetings. Thus people
of the various denominations were bound together
by the two things upon which all can unite: God’s
Word and Gospel hymns.
Address on Labrador.
About the middle of the Burlington mission, Dr.
Wilfred T. Grenfell, the famous Labrador mission
ary and surgeon, visited the city, and was invited by
the evangelists to deliver the address at the Armory
one evening. He gladly responded and gave a thrill
ing narrative of his twenty years’ work among the
deep sea fishermen of the Labrador coast. In be
ginning his address he told how he had been con
verted many years ago in London, England, at just
such meetings, conducted by Dwight L. Moody. In
a graphic and picturesque manner he told how life
along the Labrador coast had been revolutionized by
the Gospel of Jesus Christ. At the close of his ad
dress, at Dr. Chapman’s request, a collection was
taken for helping Dr. Grenfell to establish a tem
perance home for seamen in St. Johns, N. B.
Following the Burlington mission the evangelists
had intended spending two weeks at Brattleboro,
"V t., but the mission could not be held there' on ac
count of smallpox. Then Dr. Chapman set out ear
lier than he had intended to conduct a series of con
ferences in theological seminaries. A few days after
the mission in Burlington ended, Mr. and Mrs.
Alexander and Mr. Harkness sailed for England to
spend the holidays.
lhe evangelists expect to begin their new year’s
work at Richmond, Va., on January 3d. Following
this, they are planning to conduct missions in Bos
ton and Springfield, Mass., and in Chicago, leaving
for Australia, during the month of April.
Gob. Nor then’s Pinging Speech.
(Continued from Page 1.)
and effective—the individual must not only enter
tain sound opinions, but he must have the courage
to put them into the public mind, before a social
conscience for the public good can be formed and
put into action.
For many years the manufacture and sale of
whisky were more than profitable to those engaged
in th? nefarious traffic.
In the earlier years of cur country’s settlement,
the decanter upon the sideboard was the expected
incident in our better, and, many times, in our
Christian homes. Some man’s individual conscience
was aroused to the possibilities of danger, and the
possible desolation through riot and bloodshed, from
drunkenness. Some such man gave the public his
opinions, and, from year to year, the conviction has
widened and deepened until the social conscience
has become so aroused that, it really seems, the con
tinent will be swept clean of this iniquity, with
Georgia in the lead, under the promptings of a
thoroughly aroused and determined civic conscience
throughout the State.
But think of the millions of lives that have been
destroyed; the millions of homes that have been
wrecked; the millions of hearts that have been
broken, just because good citizens failed, for so
long a time, in civic courage, to denounce this
monster sin, and because bad citizens loved money
far more than they loved men. Oh, the pity of it,
the pity of it, that we waited so long and wasted
so much, because our civic courage was beaten down
by the lawless, the defiant, the destructive and the
bad!
The individual conscience has been defined to be,
intelligence applied to moral questions; that is, char
acter, the intelligent self, deciding moral matters.
This involves, first, the intelligence to know the
facts, and then the conscience to decide as to the
moral quality, and then the courage and the wisdom
to enact, and then properly enforce the law to
prevent.
Intelligent public mon knowing, fully, the disas
trous results that come from the whisky traffic, and
yet, pessimists as they were, not brave enough to
do their duty, allowed their individual conscience
dulled, because of strong public opinion, or a domi
nant social conscience, favoring the sale, and
they have not, until recently, been courageous
enough to combat the overpowering demands of a
partial public conscience, claiming the right to
(Continued on Page Seven.)
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