Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1892-06-02
say: II have lived for this world too

outioniDed in heart but in life, began to
scatter benefactions, and toward all the
great charities of the day he became a
cheerful and bountiful almoner. What
was the cause of this change? everybody
asked; and no one was capable of giving
an Intelligent answer.
In another part of the church sat Sab
bath by Sabbath, beautiful and talented
woman, who was n great society leader
She went to church because that was re-
spectacle thing to do, and in the neighbor-
hood where she lived it was hardly respect
able not to go. Worldly was she to the
last degree and all her family worldly
She had at her house the finest germans
that were ever danced, and the costlest
favors that were ever given, and though
she attended church she never liked to
hear any story of pathos, and as to re-
| hgious emotion of any kind, she thought
it positively vulgar. Wines, cards, the
aters, rounds of costly gayety were to her
the highest satisfaction. One day neigh
Dor sent in a 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 20
ing to lose her soul, and she wondered if
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 it,"
and no one could make satisfactory expla-
| n hp pI w III
there was no general awakening in that
church. many such isolated cases of such
unexpected and unacCountable 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 looko out for the solution of this
religious phenomenon Where is it,
they said, land who is it and what is it 20
At last the discovery was made and all
was explained. a poor old Christian wom-
an standing in the vestibule of the church
one Sunday morning, trying to get her
breath again before she went upstairs to
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 s@le man or some woman pres
cnt 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-iust that one She waited and
! waited for communion days to see when
the candidates for membership stood I'D
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 poor and unnoticed. A little
cloud of consecrated humanity lowering
in the galleries. That was the secret place
of the thunder. There is some hidden, I'M
known, mysterious source of almost all
the moral and religious power demon
strated Not one out of a million-not one
out OF ten million prayers ever strikes a
human ear. On public occasions "a minis
ter of religion voices the supplications of
an assemblage, bat the prayers of all the
congregation are in silence. There is not
IA second in century when prayers are not
ascending, but myriads of them are not
even as loud as whisper, for God hears a
thought as plainly as vocalization That
silence of upplication-hemis and
! INC SttItJ place Oh
In the winter of 1873 we were worshipine
in the Brooklyn Academy of Music in the in
| te1regnum of churches. We had the usual
great audiences, but was oppressed beyond
measure by the fact that conversions were
not more numerous One Tuesday 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. | took them to the
top room of my house. ! said to them Il
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, bat | cannot see that they are
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 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 solemnitics of such I'M
usual power that the worshpers looked
into each others faces as much as to saw.
"What does all this mean" And when
the following Sabbath came, although we
were in a secular place, over four hundred
arose for prayers and a religious awaken
| ing took place that made that winter mem
orable for time and for eternity. There
may be III this building many who were
brought to God during that great ingatl-
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-when
people will find out the velocity, the ma les
| ty, the multipotence of prayer, We brag
about our limited express trains, which
put us down IA thousand miles away in
twenty-four hours, but here is something
| by which in moment we may confront
people five thousand miles away We
brag about our telephones, but here is
something that beats the telephone in ut