Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1892-06-09

hood WHERE she LIVED Il ,was har,Ilv rs-r~ct.
AHA NOT 10 90 Worldlv ~. - 81 ~.
last deonea and ali her fsy,t1- ,-oS,5I-
She had al her bouse The an. sa,n, =.
that were ever danced and tha co-tiis-s t.Ii.-.
favors that were ever givan .,.d ,ho,,,,h
she attended church she never liked 10
hear any story Of pathos, and As TO re-
ligious emotion Of any kind, she thought
IL positively vulgar. Wines, cards, the
aters, rounds Of costly gayety were to her
the highest satisfaction. One day neigh
Dor sent In visiting card, and this lady
came down the stairs In tears, and told the
whole story Of how she had not slept for
several nights, and she feared she was 60
ing to lose her soul, and she wondered II
some one would not come around and pray
with her.
From that time her entire demeanor was
changed, and though she was not called
upon to sacrifice any Of her amenities of
life, she consecrated her beauty, her social
position, her family, her all to God and the
church and usefulness. Everybody said
In regard to her, Have you noticed the
change, and what in the world caused iti"
and no one could make satisfactory expla-
nation. In the course Of two years, though
there was no general awakening In that
church, many such isolated cases Of such
unexpected and unaccountablec conversions
took place. The very people whom no one
thought would be affected by such consid.
erations were converted.
THE PowER OF PRAYER,
The pastor and the officers of the church
were on the lookout for the solution of this
religious phenomenon. "Whene IA IL -
they said, 'and who is IL and what "a II ~
At last the discovery was made and ali
was explained. A Door old Christian yvo,n-
an standing in the yestibule Of the church
one Sunday morning. irving To get her
| breath again before she went upstairs IN
the gallery, heard the INQUIRY and told the
secret. For years she had been in the
habit of concentrating all her prayers for
| particular persons in that church. She
would see some man or some woman pres
| ent and, though she might not know the
persons name, she would pray for that
person until he or she was converted to
God. All her prayers were for that one
person-just that one. She waited and
waited for communion days to see when
the candidates for membership stood mn
| whether her prayers had been effectual.
1t turned out that these marvellous in
stances of conversion were the result of
| that old woman's PRAYERS as she sat in the
gallery Sabbath BY Sabbath. bent and
| wizened and Door and unnoticed. A little
| cloud of consecrated humanity hoyer;n0
in the galleries. That was the secret place
| of the thunder. There is some hidden nm
known, mysterious source of almost all
| the moral and religious mower demon
strated, Not one out of a million-not one
| out of ten million pravers ever strike n
| human ear. On nubiic occasions a minis
| ter of religion voices the sunnlications of
| an assemblage. but the PRAYERS of all the
congregation are in silence. There ia not
a second in century when PRAYERS are not
ascending, but myriads of them are NOT
| even as loud as a whisper. for God hears a
thought as plainly as a vocalization. That
silence of Observation-Disclosures and
perpetual-is the secret place of thunder
In the winter of 1875 we were worshinino
| In the BROOKLYN Academy of Musicin the in.
terregnum of churches. We had the usual
great audiences. but / was oppressed bevond
measure by the fact that conversions were
not more numerous. One Tuesday I invited
! to my house five old. consecrated Christian
men-all of them gone now, except Father
Pearson, and he, in blindness and old age,
waiting for the Masters call to come up
higher, These old men came. not knowing
why invited them. I took them to the
top room of my house. said to them: 81
have called you here for special PRAYER. ]
am in an agony for a great turning to God
of the people. We have vast multitudes in
attendance and they are attentive and re
spectful but l cannot see that they arr
saved. Let us kneel down and each one
pray and not leave this room until we are
all assured that the blessing will come and
has come" 1t was most intense crying
unto God. said, Brethren, let this meet,
ing be a secret" and they said it would be
That Tuesday night special service ended
On the following Friday night occurred
the usual prayer meeting. No one knew
of what had occurred on Tuesday night
but the meeting was unusually thronged
Men accustomed to pray in public in great
composure broke down under emotion
The people were in tears. There were sobs
and silences and solemnities of such un
usual power that the worshipers looked
into each others faces as much as to saw
"What does all this meanW And wher
the following Sabbath came, although We
were in a secular place, over four hundred
arose for prayers and religious awaken
ing took place that made that winter mem
orable for time and for eternity. There
may be in this building many who were
brought to God during that great ingath
ering, but few of them know that the up
per room in my house on Quincy street
where those five old Christian men poured
out their souls before God, was the secret
place of thunder.
SCIENCE CANNOT APPROACH IT.
The day will come-God hasten it-wher
people will find out the velocity, the males
ty, the multipotence of prayer. We brae
about our limited express trains, which
put us down Thousand miles away IL
| tWenCy-Iouf nours, Dut mere Is something