Morning journal and courier., 1891-11-16
PIOUS BUSINESS MEN

Who Believe They Are Heard and
Answered by the Unseen Power
The Fulton Street, New York,
MONDAY Prayer RIeetins-Its Audi
ence and Hts Observation-Disclosures of
Supernatural Interpolation in Af-
fairs of Common Life.
copyright by L. R. Stegman.l
In one of the busiest quarters of New
York, in front of an office building,
swinging sign with blue ground bears in
gilt letters the legend, Fulton Street
MONDAY Prayer Meeting" The hour was
between twelve and one when found my
self in the vicinity the other day, and as
cending one flight of stairs 1 reached a
door on which the word "Chapel" is
painted. 1 was surprised on entering to
find sandwiched between the business Of
fees on Fulton and those on Ann street
quite churchly audience room, with high
walls, the roof surmounted by a dome,
and a gallery running across the rear. 1t
was the old chapel of the North Dutch
church, a landmark which years ago yield
ed to pick and mattock at the inexorable
behests of commerce, that had thus been
moored sort of sacred ark in a quiet ha-
ven amid the surging activities about it.
A young business man occupied the plat
form as leader of the meeting. Fifty or
more men of business had seats on the
plain benches that accommodate worship
ers A Wall street man presided at the
parlor organ, and sturdy voices united
with a will under his leadership in singing
gospel hymns. The leader read number
of requests for prayer. One of them was
from mother whose boy had gone astray.
Another was from Moravian preacher to
a colored flock in the West Indies, who
seemed to be having hard time of it
among his woolly headed parishioners
A lady in Dublin, ireland, sent request
for prayers that two young Mohammedan
proteges-girls on whom she had bestowed
the names Emerald and Pearl, and whom
she is educated for mission work among
the people of their race in India-might
be blessed in their studies. Other requests
were from persons in financial embaIrass-
ment and from those in domestic difficult
ties, all breathing a devout reliance on
that unseen power that makes and molds
the destinies of men. Each mail brings
from dozen to a score or more such re-
quests from all parts of the world. The
| order of exercises was very simple. II
consisted of singing, supphcation and ex-
| hortation. In the petitions the various
| requests we're remembered, and evidently
by men who shared the confidence of those
who presented them in the efficacy of pow
| er. The men were not enthusiasts. They
prayed in a straightforward business-like
| way, with becoming reverence, but with
4 I,oI 1~@,
| asking privileges from common council
Most of them were typical New Workers
and knew they had to work for dollar a.
| well as pray for it. But they believed il
prayer as an aid to endeavor, that much
was certain, and were plainly impatient
when preacher-ike person who appeared
to have strolled in from the rural distric
infringed their rules both as to time ant
practicability by ejaculatinga a collection o.
pious phrases that meant nothing. Wher
he sat down the silence resembled big
black hole into which he and his rigama
role necessarily had to tumble out of sigh
and hearing, and then the Wall stree
man struck up hymn and the brief ant
pointed petitions were continued.
A very interesting and significant fea
ture of life in the msmmon worshipini
metropolis is this Fulton street prays
meeting-from fifty to two hundred mel
(for the latter number is not infrequent
who have left their desks and counters an
come together at midday to ask bein
whom they cannot see for some thing
that ordinarily seem incomprehensible an
for others apparently impossible, and thi
within couple of blocks of Bob Ingel
soils law Office and within earshot of th
presses that recently published Julia
Hawthorne's weak negations of the supel
naturall Are the prayers of these me
: answeredl Does the unseen being heal
Are the storm-beaten and battered wh
, often drift into this place raised by Il
omnipotent arm on whose help they cal
and are they ever, in response to the
: pleadings, restored to moral health an
q manhoodl
I put these questions at point blank
the veteran founder of the Fulton sire
! prayer meeting, who has these many yea
. been its uperintendent-the Rev. Jerem
: ah Calvin Lanphier. BE looked at me
compassionate astonishment. "You {
not suppose, he said, s'that hard-head,
. business men have been coming togeth