Thus the empty seats in the chapel soon became filled, for the members, brought strangers with them. And, better still, the church was full too. The minister called an enquirers’ meeting [an evangelistic meeting for the unsaved], and, oh! such a number came; and the good man was ready to say, “Who has brought me these?” But the most gratifying thing of all was, that those whom the Lord added to the church stood firm; they did not run away from her services. It was God’s revival, and God’s revivals are not spurious.
“The Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved,” and these whom He added were still steadfast months later, and many of them, in the future, became ministers of the gospel, and some of them were sent into foreign lands, to preach among the heathen the glad tidings of salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord. Oh, how I should like to see such revivals as these in your good Yorkshire chapels! Some of our churches down London way, in Essex chapels especially, have never done anything, I do believe, for the last fifty years, that their great, great grandfathers did not do. If you went into a village, and proposed to preach in the open-air, you would be met by numerous objections. “It is not Calvinistic, for the Wesleyans do that.” Well, well, if others do a good thing, why should we not follow their example, and do as they do? If a special Wednesday prayer-meeting is proposed, the portly deacon asks, “What is the use of it?” Another old preacher says, “The people are too busy, also the market comes on a Wednesday, and it would prove such a great interference with business.” Then a third chimes in, “No, we had rather not, there are too many meetings already.” They are very good men, but not quite up to the times, or else they would have seen that, now and then, extraordinary means must be used to produce extraordinary effects.
Some of our respectable churches would be frightened out of all manner of propriety, if God the Holy Spirit should once begin a work of this nature in their midst. There are good old deacons and church-members everywhere to be found who, if more than one candidate a month presented himself for church-fellowship, would exclaim, “Surely, they can’t be good ones” and they would begin to try to pump the poor souls dry, by plying them with deep theological questions about “the Bible” and “a deep experience” and difficult doctrines; and if the candidates made any little blunder, they would at once say, “See, you are not up to the mark, and ought not to be received; you had better wait a few months until you gain more knowledge of the deep things of God.” The effects of a true revival among all our churches would be positively astounding; it would do ministers good, members good, deacons good, and, above all, it would do sinners good, by bringing them to Jesus Christ our Lord.
Christian men and women, I beg you, pray that God would pour out His Spirit upon us. The devil is wide-awake, hell is active, unbelief is rampant, Roman Catholicism is making mighty strides, every system of error is on the alert. Rise up, rise up, you guardsmen of the truth! Rise up, rise up, you mothers in Israel! Rise up, rise up, for God and for His cause! Cry to God that, as the enemy is becoming mighty, that He, God, would prove Himself almighty. Remember how your time is flying; you can only do little for Christ, should you even be spared to live to eighty years of age. What are eighty years? How little to spend for Him who gave His life for us! Oh! when we think how little we can do, it should stir us up to do all we can, and to ask that God, if He will not lengthen our years, may double their effect, by making us doubly laborious, and doubly useful.
Remember, too, that while time is flying, men are dying, souls are being lost, sinners are being hurried away to the bottomless gulf. Does not this thought move your hearts? Would you not seek to save sinful men and women, if you could hear the shrieks and groans of those who have perished in their sins, and are now past hope? And some of these, whom you might seek to save, are your own sons and daughters, your own flesh and blood. You have every cause for a revival, for there are among you wives who have drunken husbands, and there are husbands here who have drunken wives; there are parents here who have ungodly children, sons and daughters who make their hearts to ache. If you will not plead for the conversion of other sinners, at least pray for a revival that your own offspring may be saved by grace. If this argument does not touch you, what other one can I use? “He that does not care for his own relatives has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”
Oh, how sweet it is to parents when they see their children brought to Christ! I met with a remarkable instance of a happy woman, not many months ago. A widowed mother had two sons, who were nearly full-grown men. They had been excellent children in their boyhood, but they began to be headstrong, as too many young people are prone to be, and they would not submit to their mother’s control; they would spend their Sunday as they pleased, and sometimes in places where they should not have been seen. Their mother determined that she would never give up praying for them, and one night she thought she would shut herself up in the house, and pray for her sons’ conversion.
The very night she had set apart for prayer on their behalf, the older son said to her, “I am going to hear the minister that preaches down Southwark way; I am told he is an odd man, and I want to hear him preach.” The mother herself did not think much of that minister, but she was so glad that her boy was going anywhere within the sound of the Word, that she said, “Go, my son.” He added, “My brother is going with me.” Their mother stayed at home, and earnestly prayed for her sons. Those two young men came to church, and that odd minister was blessed to see the conversion of both of them. When the mother opened the door, on their return home, the first one fell upon her neck, weeping as if his heart would break. “Mother,” he said, “I have found the Savior; I am a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.” She looked at him a minute, and then said, “I know it, my son; tonight I have had power in prayer, and I know that I have prevailed. I knew it would be so.” “But,” said the younger brother, “Oh, mother! I too, have been cut to the heart, and I also have given my heart to Jesus.”
