Happy was that mother, and I was happy, too, when she came to me, and said, “You have been the means of the conversion of my two sons; I have never been baptized before, I see it now to be the Lord’s command, I will be baptized with my children.” It was my joy to lead the whole three down into the water, and to baptize them into “The Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Why should it not be so in your case? If God should send a revival of Christianity in the midst of your church, you may hope that your children will be included in the blessing.
Now, if other arguments have failed, let me give you one more reason why you should seek a revival. There, on the cross, hangs your Savior bleeding to death, He looks at you. I think I hear Him say to you tonight, “Love sinners; I love you; do you not love Me? Do you not love sinners for My sake?” I think I see Him with His blessed hands nailed to the cruel cross, and as He hangs there, He looks on you, my brother, over there, and He says to you, “Sinner, I am bearing all this for you; what will you do for Me?” What will you do for Jesus Christ, who died to save you? Brothers, sisters, what will you do? Ask your hearts the question, and answer it as you mean to carry it out, “What can I, what shall I, do for Christ Jesus my Lord?” one of you says, “I will give my money for Christ.” Amen! Another says, “I will use my pen for Christ.” Amen! Another cries, “I will give my all to Christ; all I am, and all I have, shall be hereafter and forever Yours, my Savior.” Amen and Amen! Practice your resolves; go and live in the world, but no longer as of the world, “for you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.” God grant that so great a revival may spring up in our land! “O Lord, revive Your work.”
Now I shall conclude by trying to show you how you can, as Christians, each of you, in the hands of the Holy Spirit, promote a revival. It is hard to tell, dear friends, what is the best thing that a man can do towards the salvation of souls when his heart is right; for, sometimes, the very strangest act becomes the most useful. I will tell you a strange but true story. That holy man, George Whitefield, was once staying at Rhode Island, at the house of a sea captain who was a rich and honorable man. The family was very much attached to the preacher, and they did everything to make him comfortable. Whitefield was accustomed always to speak to the persons where he stopped, and to warn them to “flee from the wrath to come.” But this captain was a man so respectable that he did not like to introduce the subject; the devil said to him, “George, don’t say anything to the captain, he will get right in time, he will be sure to come around; see what a nice sort of a man he is; it would not be respectful of you, either, to be imposing your religion on him; and, besides, he hears you preach, and that is sufficient.” So George let day go after day, and did not say anything to the captain, his wife, or his family.
At length, the last night came, and George Whitefield went to bed with an aching heart, for his conscience said to him, “Whitefield, you have not done all you could for the salvation of this family, and therefore you are guilty.” The flesh said, “No, no, Whitefield, you do a great deal other good work; God will excuse you letting this one family alone.” Again the Holy Spirit said, “Not so, not so, Whitefield, you must say something.” Well, poor fellow, what to do he could not tell, for he felt he could not summon courage to speak to the captain on the last day. He said, “If I had done it before, I could have done it well, but not now.” At last, this thought struck him; he had a diamond ring on his finger; (I never knew the use of those things till I heard this story!) He went to the window-pane, and wrote these words, “One thing you lack.” Whitefield went his way; this was all that he did, and his heart still ached, for he felt sure he had not done all he ought to have done. He was no sooner gone from the house than the captain, who, loved and venerated him, went upstairs, and said, “I will look at the bed where this holy man slept.” The writing on the window-pane at once caught his eye; he stood and looked, and looked, and wept, and wept again. He then went to the head of the stairs, and said, “Wife, come up here.” She came, and he, pointing to the window-pane, said, “There, you and I thought we had made this good man comfortable, and we fancied that he had forgotten our souls; but, you see, he was troubled about us; he did not like to speak to us, yet he could not go away without leaving a message, for his heart was sad about us.” “Oh!” she said, “I wondered why he did not seem concerned about us, but I see it now;” and she began to weep with her husband. He said to her, “Let us call the children up,” so they called them up, and said to them, “Look there! Read that!” They read it, and there and then the Spirit of God convinced them of sin, and led them to Christ. I know the person who now has in her possession the pane of glass bearing this very writing cut with the diamond, and it is kept by the family as a memento of the most sacred kind. Who can tell how little a thing may do good? Only get your heart right, have an anxious desire to do good, and you cannot tell how you may be the means of promoting a revival, and so bring about the conversion of your friends.
But if you want a large blessing, let me say, first of all, “Meet for prayer.” What a grand thing a good prayer-meeting is! I like the “Amen!” when people do not shout it out too loudly, and when they put it in the right place. To hear it sometimes makes a man respond, “Amen! Amen!” he cannot help it. I was once at a Primitive Methodist meeting where a good brother was intent in prayer, so, they said to him, “Plead the blood, plead the blood, brother!” It frightened me at first, till I remembered where I was. The poor man did plead the blood of Jesus, and we had a blessed prayer-meeting indeed. What we want is, more life and earnestness in all our prayer-meetings; briefer, more fervent, burning, believing praying. If we all prayed as we would plead for our own lives, if we all said no more words than were needed, and quit when we had done praying, then we should have good prayer-meetings. Some of our brethren evidently have an idea that they must keep up to the orthodox twenty minutes, and there they stand, telling God everything in the world, but not praying even one little petition.
