Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-04-23

ndQ no IneOiOBicdl tuucdllCl, yet louiS lie
is the most effective evangelist in Great
Britain Apparently the results of his work
more pronounced than even those that
follow the visits of Torrey and Alexander,
the American revivalists.
The First Midnight Parade
In the spring of 1868 Gypsy Smith was
attending the annual session of the Ma
tional Free Church Council of Great Brit
ain at Brighton. There he made an evan
geistic address. and at night led the min
listers in a procession through the slums of
the city. ending with a spectacular mid
night service. The credit for originating
this form of work appears to belong to
him. The experience was radical one for
most of the preachers. They had never be-
fore seen this seamy side of life. Nor had
they thought 1t possible for the gospel invi-
tation TO be given respectful, much less
cordial, hearing by people who live by
vice. Yet this is exactly what they saw.
They found that the drunkardS, the GRIM
inals and the fallen men and women heart
lily responded to their invitations to join the
procession to a great meeting at the Brigh-
ton Dome. Keepers of disreputable houses
even urged the unfortunate creatures under
their care to go to the meeting. Not a
single insult was offered to the astonished
preachers as they paraded through the pur-
lieuS of Brighton
A Novelist Aroused.
One of the preachers participant in this
novel experience was d WtIl-hilONH bIIliSL
author Rev w. j. Dawson, famed on both
sides of the water for his essays of literary
criticism, his biographies, his life of Christ
and two or three works of fiction. Mr..
Dawson was widely known also as lee
turer His church, the Highbury Quadrant,
was in an aristocratic quarter of London,
and for ten years he had been satisfied
with the pastorate.
brighton eypprencp to have
revolutionized his life. The depths Of his
Cornwall nature We're stirred by the spec
tacle of the poor creatures who hungrily
followed the promise of spiritual food. He
became Immediately dissatisfied with his
own church and its work, and so he pro-
posed that it, too, enter into evangenstic
effort Gypsy Smith was invited for
mission, and the upshot of ii all that
the Highbury Quadrant saints were soon
parading the neighberhood at midnight.
astonshed to learn that at their very doors
were such poverty and wlckedness as they
had never ina gined Mr.. Dawson says that
the revelation of pagan London was one of
the epochal experiences of his life. So after
twenty years of conventional and accept
able preaching he found himself turned to
evangelStic ways.
Evangelism Plus Culture.
But Mr.. Dawson was what is known as a
higher critic. He entirely out of SYM
pathy with the old type of evangelists. His
theology was liberal, or the ScnOOl or Such
men as Lyman Abbott and Newell Dwight
Hills. Still he felt himself called to repre-
sent form Of revival activity that should
be evangelism, plus culture"
Mr.. Dawson declares that. all things being
equal the man best fitted for evangelism is
the man who brings to the work the ripest
mind and the widest culture. There is no
valid reason. says he, why culture and
evangelism should be treated as opposites.
They were united in Wesley and they were
united in Drummond Last fall he came
to America to lecture and while on visit
to the pastor of the Plymouth Church,
Brooklyn, DIR. Newell Dwight Hills, he re-
lated his experience and his changed views
to the latter DIR. Hills was greatly moved
and both preachers had a weeping time of
it.
The two men went together to Des Moines
last November to the meeting of the Con-
pregational National Council. There Mr..
Dawson told the story to the assembled min
listers and they seem to have been strangely
affected Most extravagant statements are
made concerning the meeting. Veterans
like Rev. DR.. Francis E. Clark, president
of the United Society of Christian Endeav-
or: Rev. DR.. A. H. Bradford and Rev. DIR.
Frank w. Gunsaulus declared that they had
never before experienced such a meeting.
So instead of fulfilling series Of lecture
engagements in America. Mr.. Dawson found
himself suddenly called upon TO undertake
evangelistic work during the full extent OF