Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-05-30
A PLACE OF THUNDER,
The Closet of the Devout Christian
a Source of Moral Power.
SECRET PRAYER WORKS WONDERS.
One Tcor Old Woman's Devotions Have
Revolutionized a Church.
TALNAGE'S REGULAR SUNDAY SIRNON
ESPECIAL TELEGRAM TO THE prspArcH.l


II is past midnight, and O'Clock in the
morning, far enough from sunset and sun.
rise to make the darkness very thick, and
the Egyptian army in pursuit OF the escap-
ing Israelites are on the bottom of the Red
Sea, its waters having been set up on either
side in masonry of sapphire, for God can
make wall as solid out of water as out of
granite, and the trowels with which these
two walls were built were none the less
powerful because invisible. Such walls had
never before been lifted.
great lantern of cloud hung over this
chasm between the two walls. The door OF
that lantern was opened toward the Israel
ties ahead, giving them light and the back
OF the lantern was toward the Egyptians,
and it growled and rumbled and Jared with
thunder not thunder like that which cheers
the earth after drought, promising the re-
freshing shower, but charged and sur
charged with threats of doom. The Egyp-
tian captains lost their presence OF mind,
and the horses reared and snorted and the
characters were hurled headlong, and the
Red Sea fell on all the host.
Prayer Answered by Thunder.
The confusing and confounding thunder
was in answer to the prayer of the Israelites
With their backs cut by the lash and their
feet bleeding and their bodies decrepit with
the suffering Of whole generations, they had
asked Almighty God to ensepulchre their
Egyptian pursuers in one great sarcophagus
and the splash and the roar OF the Red Sea
as II dropped to its natural bed were only
the shutting OF the sarcophagus on the dead
host. That is the meaning of the text when
God says: 81 answered thee in the secret
place Of thunder"
Now, thunder, all up and down the Bible,
is the symbol of power. Small wits depreci-
ate the thunder and say, lit is the iehtning
that strikes" But God evidently thinks the
thunder OF some importance or he would
not make so much of it. That man must be
without imagination, and without sensitive
ness, and without religion who can without
emotion see the convention of summer
clouds called to order by the falling gavel of
the thunderbolt There is nothing in the
natural world that SO awes and solemnizes
me As the thunder.
The Egyptian plague of hail was accompa-
nied with this full diapason OF the heavens.
While Samuel and his men were making Il
burnt offering of lamb, and the Philstines
we're about to attack them, it was by terror
iZlng thunder they we're discounted.
But, when my text says, 81 answered thee
in the secret place OF thunder 1t suggests
there is some mystery about the thunder
To the ancients the cause of this lombard
ing the earth with loud sound must have
been more OF mystery than it is to us. The
lightningS, which were to them wild mon-
sters ranging through the skies. in our time
have been domesticated. We harness cleo
tricity to vehicles and we cage it in lamps
Things We Don't Know About Electricity.
To one thing known about the thunder,
there are a hundred things not known.
After all the scientific batteries have been
doing their work for thousand years to
come and learned men have discoursed to
the utmost about atmospheric electricity
and magnetic electricity and galvanic cleo
tricity and thermotic electricity and fric-
tional electricity and positive electricity
and negative electricity, my text will be as
suggestive as it is to-day, hen it speaks Of
the secret place OF thunder.
Now, right along by a natural law, there is
always a spiritual law. As there is a secret
place of natural thunder there is a secret
plac moral thunder. Iii other words, the
reli power that you see abroad in the
CO nd in the world has a hiding place,
and in many cases il is never discovered at
SM. l will Use similitude. i can give only
the dim outline OF a particular case, for
many of the remarkable circumstances I
have forgotten.
Many years ago there was a large church
1t was characterized by strange and unac-
revlvals, but individual cases of spiritual al
rest and transformation. A young man sat
IN one of the front pews. He was graduate
of Yale, brilliant as the North Star and no.
toriously dissolute. Everybody knew him
and liked him for his geniality but deplored
his moral errantry. To please his parents he
was every sabbath morning in church. One
day there was a ringing of the door bell of
the pastor OF that church. and that young
man, whelmed with repentance, implored
prayer and advice, and passed into complete
reformation of heart and lite. All the neigh
bOrhoOd was astonished and asked: Why
was this? His father and mother had said
nothing to him about his souls welfare.
Another Most Remarkable Conversion.
On another aisle of the same church sat an
old miser. He paid his pew rent but was
hard on the poor and had no interest in any
philanthropy. Piles of money! And people
said: What struggle he will have when he |
quits this life to part with his bonds and |
mortgages One day he wrote to his min |
lister: please to call Immediately. / have |
a matter of great Importance about which 1 |
want to see you" When the pastor came in |
the man could not speak for emotion, but |
after d while he gathered self-control enough |
TO say: 81 have lived for this world too long. |
l want to know If you think l can be saved, |
and, If SO, wish you would tell me how" |
Upon his soul the light soon dawned and |
the old mlser, not only revolutionized in |
heart but in life, began to scatter Denefac-
tions, and toward ali the great charities of |
the day he became a cheerful and bountiful |
Rlmoner.
What was the cause of this changer every |
body asked; and no one was capable of Civ |
ing an intelligent answer. In the course OF /
two years, though there was no general |
awakening in that church, many such iso- |
lated cases of such unexpected and unac-
countable conversions took place. The very |
people whom no one thought wonld be |
affected by such considerations were con- |
verted. The pastor and officers of the |
church were on the lookout for the solution |
OF this religious phenomenon. "Where is |
ttS" 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 4
standing in the vestibule of the church one |
Sunday morning, trying to get her breath |
again before she went upstairs to the gal |
lery, heard the inquiry and told the secret. |
The Power of Concentrated Prayer.
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 woman present, 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 Tor membership |
stood up whether her prayers had been
little cloud of consecrated humanity |
hoyering in the galleries: That was the se-
cret place of the thunder There is some L
hidden, unknown, mysterious source of al
most all the moral and religious power dem
onstrated. Not one out of q million-not
one out of ten million prayers ever strikes a
human car. On public occasions minister
OF religion voices the supplications OF an as
semblage, but the prayers of all the congre-
CATION are in silence. There is not o second
In century when prayers are not ascend
ing Out UlyTlaQS OF I0en are not even as |
loud as whisper, for God hears a thought
as plainly as a vocallZation. That silence
OF supplication-hemisp and perpetual
is the secret place of thunder.
The day will come-God hasten it-when
people will find out the velocity, the
majesty, the multipotence of prayer. We
bIOg about our limited express trains, which
put rs down 1000 miles away in "a hours but
here is something by which in a moment we
may confront people s, 900 miles away. We
bIHg about our telephones, but here is