News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1892-06-02

she thought it positively vulgar. Wines,
cards, theaters, rounds of costly gayety
were to her the highest satisfaction.
One day q neighbor 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 going 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 amen1tles 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 explanation.
Tn the course of two years, though
there was no general awakening in that
church. many such isolated cases of such
unexpected and u~naccountable CONVEX
sions took place. The very people whom
no one thought would be affected by
such considerations were converted. The
nastor and the officers of the church
were on the lookout for the solution of
this religious phenomenon. "Where is
it." they said, "and who is it and what
is it?' At last the discovery was made
and all was explained. A poor old
Christian woman standing in the vesti-
bule of the church n Sunday morning,
trying to get her breath again before she
went up stairs to the gallery, heard the
inquiry and told the secret.
For years she had been in the hab4f
Lw;l1ncentrating all her prayers for parSe
ticular persons in that church. She
would see some man or some woman
present, and, though she might not
know the persons name, she would pray
for that person until he or she was con
verified 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 member
ship stood up whether her prayers had
been effectual. It turned out that these
marvellous instances 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 humani-
ty lowering in the galleries. That was
the secret place of the thunder. There
is some hidden, unknown, mysterious
source of almost all the moral and reli-
gious power demonstrated. Not one
out of a million-not one out of ten mil
Ion-prayers ever strikes a human ear.
On public occasions a minister of reli-
gion voices the supplications of In as
semblage, but the prayers of all the
congregation are in silence. There is
not a second in a 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 vo-
c~alization. That silence of supplication
hemisphere and perpetual-is the Sc
cret place of thunder.
THE SECRET PLACE OF THUNDER.
In the winter of 1875 we were worship
ing il the Brooklyn Academy of Music
in the interregnum of churches. We
had the usual great audiences, but 1 was
oppressed beyond measure by the fact
that conversions were not more numer
Gus. One Tuesday invited to my house
five old, consecrated Christian men-all
of them gone now, except Father Pear
son, and he, in blindness and old age,
waiting for the Masters call to come up
higher.
These old men came, not knowing
why I had invited them. l took them
to the top room of my house. l said to
them: 81 lave called you here for spe-
cial prayer. l am in an agony for a
great turning to God of the people. We
have vast multitudes in attendance and
they are attentive and respectful, but l
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 wac a most intense crying
unto God. / said, Brethren, let this
meeting be a secret" and they said it
would be. That Tuesday night special
service ended.
On the following Friday night oc-
Cured the usual prayer meeting. No
one knew of what had occurred on Tues
day night, but the meeting was unusu-
ally thronged. Men accustomed to pray
in public in great composure broke
down under emotion. The people were
in tears. There were sobs Snd si!ences
and solemnities of such unusual power
that the worshipers looked into each
others faces, as much as to say, "What
does all this mean?" And when the fol-
lowing 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
memorable for time and for eternity.
There may be in this building many who
were brought to God during that great
ingathering, but few of them know that
the upper 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.
The day will come-God hasten it
when people will find out the velocity,
the majesty, the m~ultipotence of prayer.
We brag about our limited express
trains which put u down a thousand
miles away in twenty-four hours, but
here is something by which in a mo-
ment we may confront people five thou
sand miles away. We brag about our
telephones, but here is something that
beats the telephone in u~tterance and re-
ply, for God says, Before they call, 1
will hear" We brag about the phono-
graph, in which q man can speak, and
his words and the tones of his voice can
be kept for ages, and by the turning of
a crank the words may come forth upon
the ears of another century, but prayer
allows us to speak words into the ears of
everlasting remembrance, and on the
other side of all eternities they will be
heard. Oh, ye who are wasting your
breath, and wasting your brains, and
wasting your nerves, and wasting your
lungs wishing for this good and that
good for the church and the world, why
do you not go into the secret place of
thunder.
But" says some one, "that is a beau
tiful theory, yet it does not work in my
case, for | am in a cloud of trouble, or a
cloud of sickness, or a cloud Of persecu-
ton, or a cloud of poverty, or a cloud of
bereavement, or a cloud of p~erplexity.'
How glad l am that you told me that.
That is exactly the place to which my
text refers. 1t was from a cloud that |
God answered Israel-the cloud over the
chasm cut through the Red seattle
cloud that was light to the Israelites
and darkness to the Egyptians. 1t was
from q cloud, q tremendous cloud, that
God made reply. 1t was a cloud that
was the secret place of thunder. So
you cannot get away from the consola-
ton of my text by talking that way.
Let all the people under a cloud hear it.
81 answered thee in the secret place of
thunder"
INFLUENCE OF THE OLD HOME.
This subject helps me to explain some