Miscellaneous

We are indebted to the editor of The Epworth Herald for the privilege of reprinting the articles in this section. They have appeared in several of the special Revival Numbers of The Epworth Herald and are specially helpful and suggestive.

THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT

REV. JOSHUA STANSFIELD

In revival work the spirit counts for more than anything else; not alone the Holy Spirit in personal work upon the unconverted, but the spirit of Christ and of holy zeal as made known in the believer. Neither numbers nor prestige is the determining factor. It is not by might nor by power, but by my spirit saith the Lord. That is to say, success is not primarily nor principally by either intellectual, numerical or organized advantage, but by the spirit of God in the workers.

Numbers, caliber and organized effort may be an advantage or a disadvantage. The brightest and brainiest of our workers may always be used to highest advantage if their work be in the Spirit. Otherwise, they are seeking results according to the capital invested — namely, brains, brilliance, social prestige and systematic work. By these they may, and probably will, secure accretions to the church, but not conversions. In our glorious twentieth-century movement, the aim is, and should be, to secure conversions — persons who have received Christ and thereby become the sons of God. Persons born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

Let it be clearly understood, then, that with excellent material and numbers, or without them, God can work unto salvation. He can use the many or the few; the few or the many. But success depends largely upon the spiritual character and condition of the workers.

On one of my first charges, in the earlier years of our young people’s work, after diligent and careful attention to the matter, we secured a weekly attendance of seven persons. This continued for nearly eight months, during which time we had systematic and faithful work according to the organization under which we were then living. As early as possible after the organization of the Epworth League we became a chapter of the same, and the spirituality and fidelity of these faithful few were the nucleus from which there grew one of the most vigorous chapters of the league, and has so continued to this day. Success has been not by numbers, but by the spirit in and of the membership.

Take an apposite case. Last year I conducted special revival meetings at Albion College, Michigan. Of the four hundred or more students in the college, over seventy percent were Christians; some of them were only nominally so, but a goodly number both of the young men and young women rejoiced in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

I found among them some of the brightest young people it has ever been my privilege to meet, using the best of their powers in the highest of all work, the salvation of souls. There were, however, on the part of about fifty persons, an intelligent consecration for spiritual power and an intense zeal in their labors such as I have not seen for many years, if indeed ever. Private prayer and group prayer meetings between class hours; personal and written invitations to the unsaved to come to Christ; deputations of two persons or more to bring certain individuals to the services; an accurate list of the names of all the students, with the church standing and largely the present religious condition of each person.

A grand revival did not “break out.” It came. It had to come from such conditions. On the fourth day of the meeting seventy-five persons were at the altar at one time. The president and professors, as well as a number of the fourth-year men, were pointing the unsaved to Christ and the unsanctified to a better life.

Of all the young men who came forward not one came alone, for some spirit-filled, earnest Christian either brought them or came with them. One hundred and two persons gave intelligent testimonies to saving grace in twenty minutes on the closing evening. But surely one of the brightest parts of that whole work was to see the president, professors and senior men — strong, cultured men — leading souls into the kingdom.

With such conditions and such a spirit it was not surprising that, before the brief meeting closed, it was stated that there were not twelve unconverted students who had not been to the altar in prayer.

“It is not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord.” Let the weakest person or chapter in our league take courage. Here is our help. Let the largest and best of our Epworthians bring all they have and are to the direction and endowment of that same divine spirit, and our beloved Methodism shall surely record two million conversions and more, to the glory of God in the church.

HONORING THE HOLY SPIRIT

REV. W. S. HARRINGTON, D.D.

The place — the small village of S N, in

Chenango County, N. Y. The time — 1840, or ’41. The spiritual condition of the community was one of stagnation.

In this town stood a Methodist house of worship, and by its side the home of a Methodist physician. In that home was a commodious kitchen where the social meetings of the church were often held. The society was small and its members did not feel able to supply fuel and lights for special services in the church edifice. The circuit was large and the pastor unavailable at that point because employed elsewhere. A few devout souls gathered in that kitchen night after night, crying mightily to God for help. He heard and answered the cry of these hungry ones. The Spirit fell upon them. Believers were sanctified. These tidings reached the ears of those who had been uninterested and they began to come to the meetings. Sinners were converted. Night after night every unconverted person in attendance was brought to Christ. Some curious ones hardly dared enter, so they stood outside observing the course of the meeting. Some of these, while standing outside, were stricken with conviction, and came into the house cry ing for mercy.

One very small boy who belonged to that home can never forget those services, so Spirit-filled, so pregnant with good to many people. That home belonged to the father of this writer. That small boy was myself. I do not know of any others living who had part in those wonderful meetings, but the memory thereof, after these sixty years, continues to warm my heart and has been an inspiration to me through the more than forty years of my ministry.

The conditions above named were very unfavorable, but as these devout souls pleaded for the Holy Spirit, the divine promises were to them fulfilled. Nothing is too hard for God. No place is so remote, no society is so weak, but there may be a glorious revival if the Holy Spirit is properly honored. “Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you.”

THE REVIVAL WITH A PLAN

REV. ISAAC CROOK, D.D.

It began in my study. I was a “transfer.” My predecessor, a gifted, beloved man with entrancing pulpit ability, had twice served that same church. He was idolized, and deserved it.

The church was generous, magnanimous, thrifty, but had not grown by revivals. The young, vigorous city — Winona, Minn. — had seen little of that sort of work. The writer was not a revivalist.’*

Seated in my study one forenoon, some time after conference, prayerfully thinking over the state of the church, a plan of campaign broke in upon me. I resolved to propose it to the official board at the next meeting. When it was outlined, one of the younger men of the board promptly moved its adoption. It was done with a unanimity that brought assurance of victory. It was of the Lord. The main feature of the plan was a visit fron the church to the church and congregation. A committee was selected to choose workers and assign the work. It required many a night’s session and careful adjustment. No battle was ever more carefully planned. As subsidiary and essential to this was the appointment of evening meetings, to which the people were to be invited. But there was no evangelist nor strange singer as an attraction.

The visit was to be more than an invitation. It was a proposal to co-operate.

Another meeting, at eight in the morning, was announced, not solely nor mainly as a prayer-meeting, but as a council of war and to plan definite work for the day. Of course, there was prayer for help to do this, but no throwing off duty on the Lord.

The arrangement was a sifting process. One of the committee, a man of large business, said:

“This is ticklish business. What if we have not treated some of these folks right to whom we are assigned?”

“Then all the more go and apologize,” was the answer.

When the plan was ready and the visitors called out, there were about fifty of them. The request was made that others ready to do visiting should tarry. This to prevent a feeling that any were slighted. None such reported, so well had the work been done. In fact, some of the visitors’ names appeared among those to be visited. There was no “nobler than thou” in the arrangement. It was a co-operation.

Soon the nightly audiences swelled to overflow. The pastor preached a short sermon. The young people sang and many of them were saved. The church members personally asked seekers to go with them to the prayer-meeting room at the rear of the pulpit. They were often almost in the kingdom before they had walked the aisle into that room, where they prayed, talked, sang and were saved.

Mary C. Nind, then out on her missionary district, coming home after a few weeks of such work, said: “What has come to pass? I meet people on the street, and find them talking religion. We never saw it in this fashion.”

Families were saved. Drunkards redeemed and some went to heaven in a year’s time. Children born again. Dance clubs broken into. One young man gave up an inherited fortune to come with us. One young woman surrendered a marriage engagement rather than Christ. A bookkeeper in a wholesale liquor-house, who had a family dependent upon him, left his desk. He never suffered and went home in a year. Universalism was knocked out of a drunken policeman, who lost his place on the force, but he soon went to heaven. A Roman Catholic, heartbroken over the death of his wife, came in as a fruit of the revival, and said: “Had I known what I was missing no four-horse team could have kept me from it.” The work was pervasive. It extended by correspondence to distant states. “Those were days of the Son of man.”

The revival had three essential elements in it:

It came as an answer to prayer.

It went forward by lay -workers in co-operation.

It was guided by the Holy Spirit.

These all will characterize the twentieth -century movement.

SEVEN VITAL PARAGRAPHS

CHARLES W. BALDWIN.

1. Make up your mind it is your work and your people’s, and by God’s blessing you can and will do it.

2. Get together such as are disposed to lay hold with you. Pray and plan. Pledge all you can to personal effort, immediate and continuous, and to mighty prayer.

3. Before public meetings are held visit every house. Take with you the best man or woman you can. Talk about religion and the revival and pray, yourself and assistant, by turns. Make your visits short.

4. Preach the Word. Preach Christ. His divine and supernatural character. His human heart of love. His readiness to forgive. His vicarious death and His shameful sufferings. His resurrection. His ascension and His heavenly intercession. Declare the judgment day, heaven and hell. Preach the necessity of being born again and invite sinners and backsliders to come to Jesus.

5. Have your best people around the altar or inside. Some time during every meeting get all the church, if possible, to come and stand around the altar. If the members come forward, a kind and urgent request to everybody, who wants to see the meetings prosper, to stand in the pews close behind the church members, will usually be heeded. Tact and perseverance will get nearly all to move. This makes the congregation mobile and tractable, and one step may be followed by another.

6. Exhort much, not from chancel only, but up and down the aisles, and, kneeling with the people in the aisles, pour out your soul in prayer. Let all see that you are in earnest.

7. Do not be discouraged. Keep at it and always at it. Love the work and devote yourself to it. Believe God, and thus justify your name as a believer. “Knowing the terror of the ‘Lor persuade men.”

PRAYING-BANDS

B. H. HART.

One thing I never fail to do. About three months before I begin my special revival services I begin to preach on revival themes and subjects exclusively — to the church at the morning service, and to the unsaved in the evening. I never permit special services of any kind to interfere with this purpose. I try to pack these sermons full of love, compassion, rewards, etc., leaving the penalty for neglect until the special meetings are well under way. Another great help to me has been the praying-band. This is nothing more than a company of young men or women (never both) who have covenanted with the pastor to go wherever he might send them for the purpose of praying with the unsaved. I am aware that other pastors, equ-ally happy in the work of saving men, do not approve of this aid. But I am quite certain that a faithful trial will convince them of its efficiency. In what I am pleased to look upon as the greatest revival of my ministry — one in which more than four hundred souls were converted — such a band of young men did splendid service. They would go anywhere, at any hour of the day or night, and pray with anyone I might suggest.

GETTING UNDER WAY

W. p. MACVEY.

Several specific things can be done:

1. You will be impressed that certain persons ought to be reached. Make a list of them — not indiscriminately of the unsaved, but of all for whom some godly heart is burdened. In nine cases out of ten ninety percent of such people will be saved, and ninety percent of the total converts will have been thus listed.

2. You will “feel” that certain persons are adapted to be lieutenants — not because of position, but because the Spirit points them out to you. Get in touch with them, work with them, understand them, pray together.

3. Preliminary meetings, notably cottage-meetings, are in order. Let the lieutenants have charge of them. The league can plan them. Let the people pray until they are burdened for the salvation of others. Inquiry-meetings, following the Sunday preaching service, prepare the way.

4. There is little use in trying to reach others until the heart of the church is right. When this beats responsive to the heart of God you cannot help but save others; an irresistible spiritual law works out that result.

5. Abundant visitation, judicious advertising, inspiring music, good janitorship, cordial ushering, reasonable hours (there is no need to tire the people out), all contribute to success.

But life is the gift of God and a revival is the work of the Holy Spirit.

AN IMPORTANT FACTOR IN REVIVALS

REV. LOUIS ALBERT BANKS, D.D.

The most remarkable conversions which have occurred under my ministry in times of revival have been those which took place in the homes of people who sometimes had not been present at all in the meetings. Personal visitation by the pastor and wise Christian workers while the revival is going on is a very important factor in revival work.

EXALT PERSONAL EFFORT

REV. GEORGE B. WIGHT, D.D.

Get thoroughly baptized by the Holy Spirit. This will give you a proper sense of the importance of the work of saving souls, a right preparation for it, and the needed enthusiasm in it, without which there can be no success. This is more important than all human helps. Evangelists, music and methods, all have their place in the work, but power and result come from the Spirit only.

Be persistent and do not weary in well-doing. Some meetings accomplish but little because they are discontinued too soon. I knew a meeting to be held three weeks without apparent result; at nine o’clock on the evening which began the fourth week, not a person had been forward; at quarter past nine, forty were seeking salvation and a great work followed. Results belong to God, so do not be discouraged if they are not seen at once. Work faithfully and pray earnestly and leave the rest to Him.

Personal work is of the utmost importance. You can do much in the public meeting, but much preparatory work can be accomplished by personal interviews with the unconverted at their homes or places of business. I have often heard expressions of surprise because certain persons went to the altar, when no one knew they were under concern; but I was not at all surprised, for I knew what good brother or sister had for days been quietly working up those cases. I cannot too strongly urge upon you this personal work. Persistent, intelligent and systematic, when directed by the Holy Spirit, it will be more effective than any other agency you can employ except the direct preaching of the Word.

From a number of cases of the results of personal work which I have known, the following may be of interest: A Sunday School teacher once told me that she expected her entire class of young ladies would be converted in the meetings which were about to be held in her village. She had asked God for their souls and she knew He would answer her prayers. With this assurance she worked judiciously and prayerfully and the result was according to her faith; every one of her class was soundly converted to God.

AN UNLOOKED-FOR REVIVAL

REV. ROBERT WATT, D, D.

The subjoined incident may be of some service to the cause of Him “whose we are and whom we serve.” It occurred during the second year of the writer’s ministry, on this wise:

The usual week-night prayer service was being held. The only unusual feature that evening was that a visiting minister made the address. His remarks were not as felicitous as could have been desired, and the devotional spirit might have been more propitious. The mention of a special service, beginning that night, would have provoked a broad smile. It seemed wise, under the circumstances, to conclude the service. With that thought in mind the pastor rose to announce a closing hymn. At that juncture, however, an unlooked-for event happened. There came upon him an almost resistless impulse to open his heart to the people. And yet there was such an utter absence of so-called “special indications” that the impulse was about to pass unheeded. So persistent, so insistent was it that it could not be disregarded entirely. Something must be done, and quickly, too, for the burden was becoming unbearable.

Relief was at hand. Seated in that quiet room that autumnal night was a goodly company of young people whose respect and love had been gained by the pastor. Why not make use of this to win them to the Master? Surely the thought was divinely given. The fact was referred to in those closing words. Allusion was made also to the heart-hunger for souls felt by every true pastor. The words, falteringly spoken, were listened to with an interest that was surprising. Feeling deepened and intensified. Many eyes were luminous with the mist of unshed tears.

Why not open the door of opportunity at once? Without waiting to parley or debate the wisdom or unwisdom of such a course, the suggestion was acted on. Imagine the feelings of that inexperienced pastor, when, in response to a simple invitation, twelve young people — some of whom had been conspicuously careless hitherto — rose and requested the prayers of the church! It is needless to add that the service did not close at the usual hour. The dreamed-of revival had come! The tide must be taken at its flood. Services for the rest of the week were announced, and that series of meetings continued for over six weeks. The revival in that obscure little church became the subject of general remark throughout the whole community. Its seen results were seventy souls saved, believers edified and a discouraged, struggling church put on its feet so that it became one of the best charges in the conference.

I have called it the * *unlooked-for revival, “for such it was. There was no season of formal preparation, no “Scolding of the church — there were some hearts longing for a revival and — it came!

And what a blessed revival it was! Its memory abides and, not infrequently, has it proved a spiritual tonic when faith was languid and the “signs” lacking. How my heart glows as it all comes back again through the mist of years! And with this memory comes this passage: ‘*They joy before thee according to the joy of harvest, and as men rejoice when they divide the spoil.” Fortunate the pastor and the church who are sensitive to the presence of “the King,” and whose faith is keen-visioned enough to detect the sign of the Son of man.

O FOR A BAPTISM OF PRAYER!

MRS. M. N. VAN BENSCHOTEN.

He was the principal of the academy in the place and a member of my Bible-class. I had been told he was skeptical in his views. I found him keen, alert, and appreciative. For three months I prepared every lesson with reference to him. When the revival services commenced I thought: “Now is the time to bring him in.” For two weeks he was indifferent and at times frivolous. One afternoon I was reading about the destruction of Sennacherib’s host, when suddenly I could read no more, for a strange strength took hold of me. I said: “This mighty God is ours. He is the same yesterday, to-day and forever. He who answered Hezekiah’s prayer can give me this soul.” I arose at once and, with a commanding faith that thrilled me, I slowly ascended the stairs to my secret place of prayer. I had only uttered, “Oh, thou God of Hezekiah!” when a tidal wave of intercession was rolled upon me. An hour passed; but still I wrestled against the powers of darkness, and with God, that Christ might gain that soul.

At last a great calm came over me. I heard the rush of dark wings; the morning broke; the clear light shone; I knew I was victor.

That night I could not go to meeting and I learned he was not there. It did not disturb me; it had passed out of my hands; all anxious care was gone. The second night I was again detained, but my husband, on his return, said: “The professor was there and came forward and was gloriously saved. He said he had been under great conviction, but had resisted, for he knew if he was converted he must preach — *But,* said he, ‘I have surrendered, and Jesus is mine.’”

That young man has been preaching the Gospel for several years.

Oh, Sunday School teacher, pray mightily to God, and win that unsaved soul in your class to Jesus!